Hugvísindasvið
No Longer a Feuding Society?
Legal Practice and Kingship in Late 13th-Century Iceland
Ritgerð til M.A.-prófs
Sayaka Matsumoto
janúar 2012
Háskóli Íslands
Íslensku- og menningardeild
Medieval Icelandic Studies
No Longer a Feuding Society?
Legal Practice and Kingship in Late 13th-Century Iceland
Ritgerð til M.A.-prófs
Sayaka Matsumoto
Kt.: 170982-4289
Leiðbeinandi: Helgi Þorláksson
janúar 2012
1
Abstract
The Icelandic Free State (c.930-1262) is well known as a model of ‘a feuding society,’
due to its unique social system based on the principle of feuding without any
jurisdiction by a king. Iceland came under the rule of a Norwegian king in the early
1260s, and it is generally thought that feuds in Iceland came to an end as a result of the
royal legislation introduced from 1271. This paper reconsiders this assumption and
aims to reveal the legal practice under kingship in late 13th-century Iceland and its
relation to the state formation there. Although the information available to us is limited,
it does indicate that people kept on feuding long after submitting to the rule of the king.
At the same time, the king’s policy was executed by his representatives through
institutions such as the summons to Norway or the oath of fidelity, which were based
on the new royal law-code. However, the king did not delegate his power to the
Icelandic king’s men as much as he did to Norwegian representatives; the Icelandic
king’s men also worked for the king, but they did not become the receiver of the oath
of fidelity to the king. There was also discrepancy on the matter of the subjects’
obligation between the king and Icelanders: the king, as rex iustus, began to demand
absolute obedience from his subjects, but Icelanders were not always aware of it. They
maintained their traditional ways of participating in decision making with their ruler,
such as feuds or negotiations at assemblies, and the king could not readily prevent
them. In the period of the 1270-80s, Iceland was no longer a purely feuding society,
and the centralisation of legislative and judicial power in the hands of the king was
actually progressed; nevertheless, it should be noted that Icelanders tended to retain
their traditional ways, regardless of the demands of the Norwegian king.
Keywords: feuds, conflicts, kingship, law, state formation, Iceland, Norway
2
No Longer a Feuding Society?
Legal Practice and Kingship in Late 13th-Century Iceland
Table of Contents
1.
Introduction ...............................................................................................................4
1.1
General perspective: state formation and conflict resolution ..........................................4
1.2
Prerequisite: conflict resolution in Iceland........................................................................5
1.3
Working definition of feuds ..............................................................................................16
2.
Changes in the law ..................................................................................................17
2.1
Codification ........................................................................................................................17
2.2
The theoretical background: rex iustus and a new concept of law ................................20
2.3
Dealing with killing and blood-feuds................................................................................22
3.
Feuds after the submission to the king ..................................................................25
3.1
Overview .............................................................................................................................25
3.2
A close look: a blood-feud between Marteinn and Guðlaugr (1273).............................29
4.
Conflict resolution under kingship: the case of Loptr Helgason ........................39
4.1
Beginning of the conflict with Ásgrímr sýslumaðr (1277-78).........................................40
4.2
The allegation of landráðamaðr (1281).............................................................................47
5.
Loptr’s journey and the strife in Norway .............................................................52
5.1
The strife in Norway (1280-90) .........................................................................................52
5.2
Loptr’s journey to Norway and stay there (1283-87) .....................................................53
5.3
Political dynamics under kingship....................................................................................56
6.
Conclusion................................................................................................................66
Bibliography ...................................................................................................................68
3
1.
Introduction
1.1
General perspective: state formation and conflict resolution
This project aims to shed light on the legal practice under kingship in late 13th-century
Iceland, from the perspective of conflict studies. The shift from local autonomy to
centralised state was universal in medieval history, and changes in the legal system and
practice played a significant role in the process; as a consequence of this state formation,
local custom was gradually integrated into the centralised judicial system, and that
process mostly included the banning of vengeance killing.
Medieval Iceland, or, more precisely, the Icelandic Free State (c.930-1262), is well
known as a model of a feuding society,1 as revealed by successive legal-anthropological
studies that have been produced from the 1970s onwards. It is a model mainly because
there was no executive power in Iceland until after the end of the Free State: they had
laws and an assembly system, but no king. In such a state-less society, feuding played a
fundamental role in keeping honour and controlling violence. However, Icelanders fell
under the rule of the Norwegian king in 1262-4, accepting his laws, which led to a
significant change in the Icelandic legal system. We have plenty of studies concerning
the role that feuding played in the Free State, but, conversely, not many of legal practice
under the kingship; like other European states in the High and Late Middle Ages,
Icelanders would sometimes have struggled, and sometimes collaborated, with the
monarchy in this transitional period of state formation.
In this context, I will explore some interrelated issues: what happened to feuds in
Iceland after the country fell under the rule of a king – did Icelanders stop feuding? If not,
1
I borrowed the term of ‘a feuding society’ from Jacob Black-Michaud, Feuding Societies,
1975.
4
what changed? How did the king work to administer conflict resolution in Iceland? And
how was this situation related to the state formation of Iceland?
1.2
Prerequisite: conflict resolution in Iceland
To begin with, let us look at the scholarship of conflict resolution in Iceland,2 Iceland
was settled mainly by Norwegians during the period c.870-c.930, and they kept Iceland’s
‘independent’ status until 1262-64, at which time Icelanders swore to pay tribute and
submit to the king in Norway. The country subsequently was under foreign rule for more
than 650 years, until it achieved its independence from Denmark in 1918 (the foundation
of a republic was in 1944.) In the 19th and early 20th centuries, influenced by the struggle
for independence, the society that had existed in the period c.930-1262 began to be
called Þjóðveldi in Icelandic historiography. It means ‘people’s domination,’ and is
usually translated in English as ‘the Commonwealth’ or ‘the Free State.’ The Free State
was thought of as a kind of democracy by 19th-century historians, as there was no king
and it seemed that the people ruled themselves through a shared system of law and
assemblies. Since then, the Free State constitution and the Sagas of Icelanders (Family
Sagas), which mainly describe social life in 10th-11th century Iceland, became a symbol
of what the free independent Icelandic people had achieved.
The Free State constitution
The Free State constitution mainly consisted of an assembly system and goði-þingmenn
relationships. Íslendingabók (a brief summary of Icelandic history written by Ari fróði
Þorgilsson in 1122-32) and Grágás (the compilations of laws in the Free State era)
2
In order to construct this overview of the scholarship, I particularly consulted the followings:
Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Allir sem sjá líta þó ekki jafnt á, 2000; Id., Tendencies in the
Historiography, 2006.
5
became main sources for the reconstruction of the constitution. According to
Íslendingabók, the General Assembly (Alþing or Alþingi) was established around 930
with the enactment of the first Icelandic law, which was modelled on the 10th-century
Norwegian law (Gulaþingslög.)3 If we base our understanding on the law and the
Íslendingabók, then we learn that the General Assembly was held once a year and
operated on the top of the pyramidal assembly system, with 13 local assemblies below it;
in the General Assembly they had courts and made laws for the whole country, while
local assemblies had local courts. A certain number of ‘chieftains’ (goðar; sing. goði)
presided over the assemblies and took leading parts in the court system; there were
probably 36 chieftaincies (goðorð) at first, but around 965, when the country was
divided into quarters and the quarter courts were introduced, three new chieftaincies
were established in the Northern Quarter, which then had twelve chieftaincies, while
each of the other quarters continued to have nine (the total number of goðorð thus
became 39.)4 Farmers (bændr; sing. bóndi)5 chose one chieftain to follow, and thence
were called ‘assembly men’ (þingmenn; sing. þingmaðr.) Chieftains had a duty to
protect and help their þingmenn in need, while þingmenn supported their chieftains at
assemblies or in battles. This reciprocal relationship, forged through the individual
agreement between goði and þingmenn, was thought to have been fundamental for social
activities in the Free State society.
Even at the earlier stages of scholarship on Icelandic history, Andreas Heusler, a
Swiss medievalist, had already produced a remarkable work on conflict resolution in the
Free State; he statistically surveyed conflicts occurring in the Sagas of Icelanders and the
3
4
5
Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Changing Layers, 2007, p.174.
Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Chieftains and Power in the Icelandic Commonwealth, 1999, p.10.
If a farmer had a certain amount of property, he was regarded as an able householder (bóndi)
and enjoyed full rights to attend assemblies, which included the right to become judges and
jurors at courts. Jesse Byock, ‘bóndi,’ Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia, 1993
(abbreviated to MSE), p.51.
6
contemporary sagas, and pointed out that they were more frequently resolved by
negotiation and settlements rather than court judgements, regardless of the elaborate
rules about lawsuits detailed in Grágás.6
However, this discrepancy between the extant law and the sagas led to a persistent
controversy in the criticism of the sources, as Jón Viðar Sigurðsson explains:
In the 19th century scholars discovered that it was impossible to combine the
information in the Icelandic Family Sagas with that in the constitution. The scholars
solved this major problem in an elegant way; the laws presented history and the
Icelandic Family Sagas literature and fiction, which could therefore not be used to
discuss the political development in the Saga Age period (c.930-1030). The Free
State’s two major symbols were thus divided between historians and legal-historians,
who were preoccupied with the laws, and the literary scholars, who studied the sagas.7
The ‘anthropological turn’ in the 1970s
As I have already mentioned, this situation changed dramatically from around 1970,
when inspiration from anthropology greatly influenced a number of neighbouring
scientific fields: this is now sometimes called the ‘anthropological turn.’ In medieval
research this was more properly a ‘legal anthropological turn,’8 as a number of studies
were done on conflict resolution, mostly by American historians discussing French
history during the period c.900-1200, as set out by Frederic Cheyette9 and Stephen
White.10 This new perspective in legal history demonstrated that conflicts were resolved
6
Andreas Hausler, Das Strafrecht der Isländersagas, 1911; Id., Zum isländeischen Fehdewesen
in der Sturlungenzeit, 1912.
7
Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Tendencies in the Historiography, 2006, pp.5-6.
8
Hans Jacob Orning, Unpredictability and Presence, 2008, pp.10-28; Hans Jacob Orning et al.
eds. Gaver, ritualer, konflikter, 2010, pp.5-38.
9
Frederic Cheyette, Suum cuique tribute, 1970.
10
Stephen White, Pactum...legem vincit er amor judidium, 1978.
7
by settlements rather than court judgements, as Heusler anticipated, and the concept of
‘feud’ was then widely applied to medieval societies. Feud, originally extracted from
anthropological observations on modern, state-less societies, is characterised as a
phenomenon in societies where a state is weak or nonexistent; this feature attracted many
historians of the early medieval period in Europe, in which the state was relatively
weaker than in other periods.11
Concerning Icelandic studies, one important aspect of the anthropological turn was
a revaluation of the Sagas of Icelanders as historical sources, which came to be
interpreted as reflecting the social customs and values of medieval Icelanders – primarily,
of the people living in the period when the sagas were written, i.e., in the 12th-13th
centuries. Aron Gurevich, a Russian historian, was an important pioneer of this new
anthropological perspective, who worked on themes such as the exchange of gifts, and
the particular world-view set out in the sagas.12 A British cultural anthropologist, Victor
Turner, also devoted an article to this new approach to the sagas, analysing the so-called
‘húskarlavíg’ (‘killings of servants’) in Njáls saga utilising a comparative approach.13
And the significant contribution to understanding of saga-world made by
Steblin-Kamenskij certainly helped to open this new frontier in Icelandic saga studies.14
Following these trends of the legal anthropological turn and the revaluation of the
sagas, the concept of the Icelandic feud was made well known in the 1980s, in particular
by two American scholars: Jesse Byock15 and William Ian Miller.16 Analysing the
11
However, “the state, at least in earlier stage, need not necessarily be hostile to feud.” William
Ian Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking, 1990, p.350 (footnote 4.) Feud is not a phenomenon
exclusive to Europe; for example, in Japanese history, where state power has always been
relatively stronger than in Europe, the rivalry between self-help and the public judicial system
was also a significant feature in the medieval period.
12
Aron Ya. Gurevich, Wealth and gift-bestowal among the ancient Scandinavians, 1968; Id.
Categories of Medieval Culture, 1985.
13
Victor Turner, An anthropological approach to the Icelandic saga, 1971.
14
M.I. Steblin-Kamenskij, The Saga Mind, 1973 (The Russian original was published in 1971.)
15
Jesse Byock, Feud in the Icelandic Saga, 1982; Id., Medieval Iceland, 1988.
8
conflicts prevailing in the Sagas of Icelanders using the notion of feud, they impressively
revealed the mechanism of peacemaking through feuds in the Free State. According to
them, feud was obligation to revenge. It is obliged by the culture of honour; the central
notion of feud was to regain lost honour and re-establish the status quo, and there was a
strong sense of balance and reciprocity, analogous to gift-exchange.17 Feuds accordingly
occurred only among people of relatively equal status and resources: a goði competes
against a goði, a farmer against a farmer. If a farmer were offended by a goði he would
rely on his own goði for help. When quarreling farmers were þingmenn of the same goði,
the goði would probably solve the problem before it turned into a feud.18 Later, taking
into account some specific features of medieval Iceland (e.g. bilateral kinship or
dispersed settlement patterns), Helgi Þorláksson made a modified version of this
understanding of Icelandic feuds,19 as will be shown in detail below, in section 1.3.
Being obliged by the culture of honour, feud functioned to prevent someone from
breaking the peace, and with shared rules it also functioned to restrict violence and make
peace after conflicts. It is therefore important to understand that, with the peacemaking
system through feuds operated outside the judicial system, feuding societies in the
medieval period were not anarchic as had previously been thought before the legal
anthropological turn, but functioned quite well in the absence of any central authority.
However, this trend towards legal anthropological history had some weaknesses:
the pattern extracted from one society does not necessarily illustrate the norms of another
society,20 and using a broad concept to analyse any given society may lead us to
16
17
18
19
20
Miller, Bloodtaking, 1990.
Ibid., p.182.
Ibid., p.185.
Helgi Þorláksson, Hvað er blóðhefnd?, 1994; Id., Feud and Feuding, 2007.
Helgi Þorláksson, Að vita sann á sögunum, p.95.
9
over-simplification – as is often the case with anthropological concepts.21 And so for the
‘feud’ there is indeed a tendency to see a feuding society as too harmonious; the aspects
of violence in feuding may be overlooked, if we over-emphasise the capacity of the
feud’s function to make peace.
Also, since legal anthropological history itself developed as a method appropriate to
understanding decentralised societies, the discussion of conflict studies tends to have
difficulty responding to the strengthening of central power that progressed in the 13th
century in most parts of Europe: “the danger of subsuming all conflicts under a
negotiation idiom is that vertical relations of coercion and authority are easily ignored or
underestimated.”22 Feuding societies in the medieval period were never egalitarian, but
class-based. The Icelandic Free State was once regarded as an egalitarian society of
farmers without any king or aristocracy, but now it is generally thought that social strata
in the Free State were much bigger than was formerly assumed.23 The integration of the
social stratification with the growing centralisation of power is not incompatible with
conflict studies,24 but it has been paid relatively less attention.
The Sturlung Era and the collapse of the constitution
Byock and Miller convincingly presented a more flexible image of a society based on
feuds. And their new anthropological ways of using the sagas triggered the extensive
increase and diversification of approaches to the Free State society based on the sagas,
beyond the constitutional history based on laws.25
21
Santiago Barreiro, Big Men During the Icelandic Commonwealth, 2010, p.8.
Orning, Unpredictability, 2008, p.26.
23
Orri Vésteinsson, A divided society, 2007 is the work with the most explicit intention to
convert the egalitarian image of the Free State.
24
Some limited attempts in other areas of Europe, see Orning, Unpredictability, 2008, p.24.
25
About the response to the anthropological turn in Iceland in the 1980s, see Helgi Þorláksson,
Að vita sann á sögunum, 1987; the article mentions not only Turner, Byock and Miller, but other
non-Icelandic scholars who led the new direction for studying Icelandic history before 1200,
22
10
Jón Viðar Sigurðsson was one of the scholars who were most intentionally aimed at
the integration of anthropological studies and legal history. He made particular use of the
Sagas of Icelanders and described the process of social stratification in the Free State
period: the accumulation of goðorð and wealth increased until around 1200, and this led
to the decreasing number of powerful families which occupied almost all chieftaincies
and established particular domains with clear borders.26 His idea about goðar, which he
based on the sagas, caused contention with Gunnar Karlsson, whose ideas about the Free
State constitution centring on goðar are compiled in Goðamenning (2004.)27 Their bone
of contention is the goði-system: Jón Viðar does not believe that the system ever
functioned with 39 goðar, as was stipulated, but Gunnar Karlsson tends to think that it
operated fairly well.
Even if the extant sources do not allow us to reach a conclusion about the practice
of the goði-system before the 13th century, at least we can see that from around 1220 the
chieftains who occupied goðorð struggled fiercely with each other, seeking hegemony
over wider domains; the period from then to the Icelandic submission to the Norwegian
king is called the Sturlung Era (or, The Age of the Sturlungs, Sturlungaöld, c.1220-1262).
In the struggles of the Sturlung Era, feuds no longer worked as well as they had earlier
for peacemaking. In the Sturlunga saga – the compilation of contemporary narratives
about the Sturlung Era – honour and revenge were still manifested by the protagonists as
their motive for taking action, but the idea among them was no longer to regain their
own honour, but to destroy their enemies: this was a civil war.
such as Carol Clover, E.P. Durrenberger and Ólafia Einarsdóttir and the Norwegians, Knut
Odner and Kåre Lunden.
26
Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Goder og maktforhold på Island i fristattiden, 1993 (English translation
with some revision by the authour was published in 1999: Chieftains and Power in the Icelandic
Commonwealth.)
27
Gunnar Karlsson, Goðamenning, 2004.
11
Alongside the escalation of struggle, the influence of the Norwegian king became
stronger; especially from the 1240s, King Hákon Hákonarson (r.1217-63) began to
extend his power to the North Atlantic area in earnest, and tied many Icelandic chieftains
to him as members of the royal retinue (hirð.) The king ordered them to bring Icelanders
to submit to him. Ultimately, the king’s goal was realised in the early 1260s, when all
Icelanders swore allegiance and tribute to the king, with Gamli sáttmáli (‘the Old
Covenant’.)
The growing interest in the late Middle Ages
Recently, as a result of the anthropological turn, the nationalistic idea of the Free State
has generally been superceded, and many scholars, both Icelandic and non-Icelandic,
have been engaged in medieval Icelandic studies. Scholarship using the Sagas of
Icelanders has especially attracted non-Icelandic scholars. The significance of feuds in
our understanding of the Free State society is also widely known. However, until the turn
of the century, relatively little attention was paid to the period after the years 1262-64.
One reason is that since the main interest among non-Icelandic scholars was either on
one unique source (i.e., the sagas) or the unique social system of Free State, for them the
period under kingship, which not many sagas cover, was less fascinating.
Meanwhile, the Icelandic scholars have tended to write about the collapse of the
Free State, or the Sturlung Era, and the research on the society after 1262-64 was more
limited and rarely extended beyond general history and summaries of administrative
changes; political development under the kingship was discussed – in which the
institutional changes, or the acceptance of the new law-codes, were at the core28 – but
28
For example, Jón Jóhannesson, Íslendinga saga II, 1958; Björn Þorsteinsson & Sigurður
Líndal, Lögfesting konungsvalds, 1978; Björn Þorsteinsson et al., Íslandssaga til okkar daga,
1991, pp.119-130; Axel Kristinsson, Embættismenn konungs fyrir 1400, 1998.
12
how this institutional change affected society was not paid much attention.29 Helgi
Þorláksson conversely did extensive research on the economical situation of Iceland in
the 13th-14th centuries in his Vaðmál og verðlag, based on anthropological theories,30
and, especially concerning to conflict resolution, his paper to the 10th International Saga
Conference in 1997 was significant, marking as it did an attempt to trace what happened
to feuds under the Norwegian kingship in Iceland.31
From the turn of the century, in contrast, the interest in the later period has been
growing significantly and diversifying in Icelandic studies. In 2005, a Brazilian scholar,
Patricia Boulhosa, published her PhD dissertation at the University of Cambridge; she
made extensive investigation of extant sources about the Icelanders’ submission to the
king, and suggested that Gamli sáttmáli may have been produced out of the political
interest in the period after 1400, and not made in the period 1262-64 as had traditionally
been thought. Although her radical idea – the denial of the existence of Gamli sáttmáli in
the 13th century – incurred strong refutations, at the very least her intent to see the
transition period from the Free State to a society under kingship as a continuous
evolution, not a rupture, has been widely accepted in recent scholarship.32
One trend in the history of the later period is the discussion of Icelandic aristocracy.
Jón Viðar Sigurðsson was a pioneer who, in 1995, studied the emergence of Icelandic
aristocracy after the submission to the king.33 In 2006, Randi Bjørshol Wærdahl
examined the prosopography of the Icelandic king’s men from the perspective of the
29
Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Allir sem sjá líta þó ekki jafnt á, 2000, p.44.
Helgi Þorláksson, Vaðmál og verðlag, 1991.
31
Helgi Þorláksson, Konungsvald og hefnd, 1997.
32
About the response to Boulhosa, see a book review by Sverrir Jakobsson: Saga-book 30
(2006), pp.116-118; Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Tendencies, 2006, pp.120-121; Helgi Þorláksson, Er
Gamli sáttmáli tómur tilbúningur? 2007. Also, the Icelandic translation of ch.3: Gamli sáttmáli:
tilurð og tilgangur, trans. Már Jónsson, 2006. Most recently, Helgi Skúli Kjartansson, Gamli
sáttmáli – hvað næst? Saga XLIX:1 (2011), pp.133-153.
33
Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, The Icelandic aristocracy, 1995. He developed the same idea in his
article in 2007: Changing layers of jurisdiction.
30
13
governance of the Norwegian kingdom.34 Henric Bagerius studied aristocratic identity
among the Icelandic elite in the late Middle Ages in terms of sexual norms.35 Most
recently, in her PhD dissertation, Sigríður Beck has also focused on the formation of the
Icelandic aristocracy in the absence of the king.36
Randi Wærdahl’s doctoral project also demonstrates the growing interest in
comparative studies. Her project contributes to the research of Norgesveldet (‘the
Norwegian domination.’) The concept of Norgesveldet, covering “the Norse world and
the Norwegian domination in the Atlantic Ocean,”37 which appeared in the 13th century
under the reign of Hákon Hákonarson, places Icelandic history in a wider context.
Another notable development is the increasing amount of researches on law and the
Church, such as Lára Magnúsardóttir’s PhD dissertation, which offers us a historical
examination of the process of excommunication until the Revolution,38 or Agnes S.
Arnórsdóttir’s extensive Property and Virginity, which investigates the law and practice
of marriage up to 1600.39 There is also some interest in the position of the Icelandic
Church from outside Iceland.40
The newly published introductory series of medieval history by Gunnar Karlsson
focuses more specifically on the later period after the institution of the Free State,41 and
also indicates that the late Middle Ages grew to have more importance in Icelandic
34
Randi Bjørshol Wærdahl, Norges konges rike og hans skattland, 2006 (The English version
was published in 2011).
35
Henric Bagerius, Mandom och mödom, 2011.
36
Sigríður Beck, I kungens frånvaro, 2011.
37
Steinar Imsen ed. The Norwegian Domination and the Norse World c.1100 -c.1400, 2010,
p.19.
38
Lára Magnúsardóttir, Bannfæring og kirkjuvald á Íslandi 1275-1550, 2007.
39
Agnes S. Arnórsdóttir, Property and Virginity, 2009.
40
Heidi Anett Övergård Beistad’s master dissertation (Kirkens frihet, 2008) discussed the
struggle for the Church’s freedom in Iceland led by Bishop Árni Þorláksson; also Narikawa
Takahiro’s master’s thesis at the University of Oslo (Innovations and conservatism, 2008)
discussed the Icelandic position in the metropolitan authority of Nidaros.
41
Gunnar Karlsson ed., Inngangur að miðöldum, 2007 and Lífsbjörg Íslendinga, 2009.
14
historiography. Not only in history, but also in literature and manuscript culture, interest
in the late Middle Ages seems to be growing, like the recent Studies in Icelandic
Fourteenth Century Book Painting.42
Given this historiography, it is immediately clear that we should pay more attention to
the period under the king’s rule; the submission to a king did not equate to the end of
Icelandic society, and Icelanders continued to negotiate with kings in Norway.43
Although the political position of Iceland from the late 13th century onwards has tended
to be seen as a part of the Norwegian kingdom – as is shown in two new inspiring books
about Norwegian state formation, by Hans Jacob Orning44 and Sverre Bagge45 – we
may expect there to develop an idiosyncratic story of state formation in Iceland which
would integrate the Free State society with the changes under kingship. The notion of
‘Icelandic state formation’ has recently been presented by Sverrir Jakobsson, but his
discussion ends at the time of submission to the king, as he admits: “the Icelandic
experiment in establishing a government without a state was terminated.”46 What I will
try to do in this paper is, by analysing the process of feud and conflict resolution under
the king’s rule, to propose a structure of Icelandic state formation that would have
developed from the Free State era. Since feud was fundamental to the social structure
and mentality of people in the Free State society, to trace the transformation of feuding
culture may well highlight the uniqueness of the state-less society that formerly existed.
42
Lena Liepe, Studies in Icelandic Fourteenth Century Book Painting, 2009.
For instance, when they accepted the rule of new Norwegian kings in 1302 or 1319,
Icelanders put some conditions to accept the kings. They seem to have believed the acceptance
of kings as a matter of negotiation.
44
Hans Jacob Orning, Unpredictability, 2008.
45
Sverre Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom, 2010.
46
Sverrir Jakobsson, The process of state-formation in medieval Iceland, 2009, p.170.
43
15
1.3
Working definition of feuds
As the last prerequisite, I would like to make a brief note on the definition of feuds.
Although there is no clear-cut line between general conflicts and feuds, not all conflicts
are feuds: feuds are mutual acts of violence for the purpose of revenge, and are mostly
practiced outside of the judicial system according to certain norms (i.e., Spielregel in
Germany.)47
Table 1: Distinctive features of Icelandic feud
Feud in the broader sense
Feud in the narrow sense
A feud (a ‘true feud’)
Fehde
Feud-like vendetta
A blood-feud
Blutrache
Blutrache-like vendetta
- A hostile state between two individuals or
- Acts of revenge, which
groups.
include blood-shedding.
- Honour compels people to react to a wrong.
- Happens when violence was used, involving
the damaging of property or livestock, but not
necessarily includes blood-shedding.
- There is a rhythm of alternation:
provocation-response.
- The violence is limited, but escalates gradually.
- A mutual concern with honour prevents the
adversaries from seeking settlements
themselves, and some third party’s intervention
is necessary for a reconciliation.
(After Helgi Þorláksson, Feud and Feuding, 2007, p.74 and p.85ff)
The distinctive features of Icelandic feud in Table 1 are based on Helgi Þorláksson, who
amended William Ian Miller’s interpretation of Icelandic feud, pointing out that groups
are no prerequisite (a feud can occur between individuals), each feud is usually not
long-standing (long-standing hostility should be regarded as ‘political strife,’ which can
47
Helgi Þorláksson, Feud and Feuding, 2007, pp.85-86.
16
include several feuds), and a feud commences without blood-shedding.48 Following
Table 1, in this paper the word ‘feud’ means feud in the broader sense, which, roughly
speaking, is a way to claim rights and to restore honour through violence, whereas
‘blood-feud’ is used as feud in the narrow sense, i.e., a revenge attack with
blood-shedding.
This distinction is significant, firstly, to note that ‘feud’ is not confined to manifest
confrontations such as vengeance killings, but also encompasses cold state and hostile
relations; secondly, to understand the process of minimising violence or private wars by
public authority. From the 11th century onwards, the formalising-process of feud became
common in Western Europe alongside the peace movement led by the Church (Pax Dei
or Treuga Dei.) The peace movement aimed to minimise violence and homicides among
Christians. The Church, and emerging secular monarchs as well, gradually succeeded in
minimising blood-feuds, but nevertheless an old idea of feuds – claiming one’s rights
through violence – survived for centuries after the peace movement. Thus, feuding in the
broader sense may well have been thought as necessary in those societies in which it was
practiced, and even the Church tolerated it, although the Church put many restrictions on
feuds and urged its formalisation. One of intentions of this paper is to consider if the
same process occurred in Iceland, and if so, how the process went on and was connected
to state formation there.
2.
Changes in the law
2.1
Codification
Before the analysis of feuds, we should survey the process and results of royal
legislation. In the Free State period Icelanders had an elaborate and sophisticated law,
48
Helgi Þorláksson, Feud and Feuding, 2007, pp.70-74.
17
collectively called Grágás. The law was transmitted orally: one third of the law should
be recited by the Law Speaker (lögsögumaðr) at the General Assembly each year, so that
the whole law was covered in three years, until it was finally written down in the winter
of 1117-18. Through Gamli sáttmáli in 1262-64,49 all Icelanders swore allegiance to the
king in Norway and agreed to become his subjects (þegnar; sing. þegn) and to pay
tribute. But there were no significant changes in the Icelandic constitution until 1271,
when King Magnús lagabætir (‘Law-mender,’ r.1263-80) sent a new law-code to Iceland.
This king’s legislation for Iceland was in the context of the codification of regional laws
in Norway.
The royal legislation in Norway was set out by King Hákon Hákonarson
(r.1217-63), who issued the so-called New Law (Ný lög) in 1260. After his death in 1263
his son Magnús took over the legislation. Magnús started to enact new laws for local
districts in Norway; in 1267 the Law of Gulaþing (one of four assembly regions in
Norway) was composed, and the Laws of Eiðsivaþing and Borgarþing were presented
the following year. These new law-codes included both the Christian and secular law,
but only the Christian section is extant in the manuscripts.50 In 1269 the Law of
Frostaþing was agreed in the assembly, but Archbishop Jón rauði of Niðarós refused to
accept its Christian section, and composed the Christian law by himself. Next, in 1271,
49
Traditionally, the covenant made in 1262 is called Gizurarsáttmáli or Gamli sáttmáli 1262;
the oldest manuscript which includes it is AM 45 8vo (c.1550-1600.) The others are called just
Gamli sáttmáli, which may have been from the years 1263, 1264 and 1302 – the manuscripts
which include its text are from the late 15th-century (Boulhosa, Icelanders and the Kings of
Norway, 2005, pp.87-88, 106-110.) As Boulhosa points out (ibid., pp.91-106), in the saga
narrative and annals the acceptance of king’s rule in Iceland was described as a protracted
process in 1256-64. I agree with this idea of regarding the submission to the Norwegian king
as a gradual process, but in this dissertation I do not go deeply into the discussion on the
authenticity of the covenants and simply call the collective of covenants that were supposedly
taken in 1262 as Gamli sáttmáli 1262, and the one in 1302 as Gamli sáttmáli 1302.
50
Járnsíða 2005, p.13.
18
King Magnús sent a new law-book called Járnsíða to Iceland,51 a book that was
accepted completely two years later, in 1273. In 1274-76 King Magnús had the National
Law (Landslög) accepted for the whole of Norway in the four local assemblies. King
Magnús also enacted the Municipal Law (bœjarlög) in 1276. After that, King Magnús set
out to revise the law for Iceland and sent another law-book, Jónsbók,52 in 1280. It was
accepted at the General Assembly in 1281 and replaced Járnsíða.
Although the details of the response to Járnsíða are not recorded in any source, its
unpopularity in Iceland is implied by the fact that Járnsíða took as long as three years to
be fully accepted, and a new law-book (Jónsbók) replaced it before long.53 This is
plausible because Járnsíða was based on the regional laws of Gulaþing and
Frostaþing,54 and thereby had a strong influence from the Norwegian legal custom,
which was at some remove from the Icelandic Grágás.55 The sending of Jónsbók was,
however, not necessarily because Járnsíða was unpopular, but rather because the
revision of Járnsíða was a natural consequence of the fast legislative development in that
period; after the National Law was enacted in Norway in 1274-76, Icelandic law needed
to be coordinated with it, and the amendment of Járnsíða demanded the writing of an
entirely new law-book.56 Unlike Járnsíða, Jónsbók made extensive use of Grágás,57 but
51
The name of Járnsíða (‘ironside’) is used in the sources from the end of the 13th century; this
may have been because a certain copy of it was ironbound. The name Hákonarbók to refer to the
same law-book appears in the manuscripts from the 17th-18th centuries. Járnsíða 2005, p.16.
52
Jónsbók was named after Jón Einarson, the lawman (lögmaðr), who was supposedly one of
the main composers of the law and who delivered the law-book to Iceland with Loðinn leppr, a
Norwegian emissary.
53
For examples of this opinion, see Björn Þorsteinsson et al., Íslandssaga til okkar daga, 1991,
p.121, or Gunnar Karlsson, Iceland’s 1100 Years, p.89.
54
Imsen ed. The Norwegian Domination, 2010, p.64.
55
In the extant 141 chapters in Járnsíða, there are only 24 chapters that display direct influence
from Grágás. Magnús Már Lársson, ‘Járnsíða,’ KLNM 7, 1962, col.567. See also Sigurður
Líndal, Lögfesting Jónsbókar 1281, 1982, p.182.
56
Sigurður Líndal, Lögfesting Jónsbókar 1281, 1982, p.182; Járnsíða 2005, pp.18-19.
57
Of the 215 chapters in Jónsbók, 196 were drawn with little alteration from the National Law
and Municipal Law, while over 100 chapters were from Grágás, along with some supplementary
19
nevertheless the acceptance of it followed a serious argument at the General Assembly in
1281, as we will see below, in section 4.2.
The Christian law
The Christian law section accompanied the law-book that was accepted in Gulaþing in
1267, but in 1269, Archbishop Jón rauði rejected to accept the Christian section in the
Law of Frostaþing, as mentioned above. The archbishop composed a Christian law by
himself, and in 1271, when King Magnús prepared the law-book for Iceland, the king
omitted the Christian section because of his argument with the archbishop. Later, Bishop
Árni Þorláksson, who was consecrated to the Skálaholt 58 bishopric in Iceland by
Archbishop Jón rauði in 1269, composed a new Christian law for Iceland in 1274, taking
the archbishop’s advice. Árni’s Christian law was accepted at the General Assembly of
1275, although it was officially applied only to one bishopric (the Skálaholt bishopric),
and not to the other (the Hólar bishopric), until the king’s letter in 1354; there are,
however, some indications that Árni’s law was also applied to the Hólar bishopric, at
least partly, soon after 1275.59 Árni’s Christian law aimed at the establishment of an
independent judicial authority in clerical or spiritual matters.
2.2
The theoretical background: rex iustus and a new concept of law
As a background to the royal legislation, there was an emergence of a new ideology in
the king’s circle in Norway. The regional laws before their codification had “no clear
criteria for how and by whom the law can be changed.”60 The þing was thus both a
material from Járnsíða. Gudmund Sandvik & Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Laws, in Rory McTurk ed.
A Companion, 2005, p.228.
58
I use the old forms for place names: Skálaholt for modern Skálholt and Stafaholt for Stafholt.
59
Járnsíða 2005, pp.26-32.
60
Bagge, From Viking Stronghold, 2010, p.184.
20
judging and a legislative assembly, where new rules could be introduced in the middle of
a case.61 However, the royal legislation from 1260 was based on a different concept of
law, which connected to the new ideology of kingship – the Christian rex iustus (‘the just
king’) ideal. The medieval Church developed a doctrine of king as an office. The king as
a person was just an ordinary human being, whereas his office was instituted by God,
and he functioned as God’s representative on earth in order to promote justice; in
Norway, this doctrine is apparent in the sources from Magnús Erlingsson’s privilege
(c.1170) to The King’s Mirror (c.1250) and the National Law (1274-76.)62
This idea of the king’s office – the king dei gratia (‘by the grace of God’) – forged
the way to a new understanding of the legislation. The first example of this appeared in
the Church: Archbishop Eysteinn [mod. Norw. Øystein] Erlendsson sent a letter to
Icelanders in 1179, in which he pointed out that his commands concerned God’s laws,
which should be respected by all Christians, so that it was not up to the Icelanders to
accept the commands or not.63 The King’s Mirror most explicitly identified the king as
the highest judge on earth, who judges people according to God’s own laws. Most of the
examples set up for the king were taken from the Old Testament; “although this work
contains no explicit reference to the king as a legislator, its doctrine of the king’s duty to
do what is just regardless of the existing laws lays the intellectual foundations for royal
legislation.”64 Thus, in the process of royal legislation, the rex iustus ideal became its
theoretical ground; the king was only able to change the law on earth.
61
Ibid., p.186.
Ibid., p.159. Bagge has much to say about the rex iustus ideology in Norway; for example, see
The Political Thought, 1987 or From Gang Leader, 1996. A new concept of law and the idea of
the king as a legislator is especially discussed in Bagge, Law and justice, 2001 or Bagge, From
Viking Stronghold, 2010, pp.170-227.
63
Bagge, From Viking Stronghold, 2010, p.202.
64
Ibid., p.203.
62
21
2.3
Dealing with killing and blood-feuds
What, then, happened to feuds in Iceland under the new royal law? One of the most
important goals of the rex iustus ideal was to put an end to private feuding; in Hákon
Hákonarson’s New Law of 1260, vengeance was already made into úbótamál – an
offence that could not be atoned by fines.65
Firstly, the Icelandic goðar system in the Free State period was totally abolished.
The assembly procedure section of Járnsíða (accepted in 1271) stipulated that the
assembly attendants, who had formerly been chosen from followers of each goði, were
now chosen by royal officials (valdsmenn.)66 And royal officials (lögmaðr and
valdsmenn) were to appoint men to the Law Council (lögrétta), which had formerly
consisted of the goðar with their advisors, the two bishops and the Law Speaker.67 The
office of Law Speaker was replaced by a lawman (lögmaðr), who presided over the
assembly and lawsuits.68 Thus, assemblies and law-courts were put in the hands of royal
officials, and no longer the goðar.
Secondly, we should look at how killers were treated. According to the personal
rights (mannhelgi) section in Jónsbók, the one who kills a man should be outlawed and
ought to pay the king 13 marks of þegngildi (‘wergild for a subject’), apart from the
compensation to the victim’s relatives; the killers also had to leave Iceland, and it was
assumed that the king could give them the right to return and live in Iceland, at the
petition of chieftains or other good men. Also, the killer who came to meet the king had
a chance to buy peace for himself and to be reconciled with the victim’s relatives, and
65
Orning, Unpredictability, 2008, p.149.
Járnsíða 2005, pp.63-64.
67
Ibid., pp.64-65.
68
Björn Þorsteinsson & Sigurdur Líndal. Lögfesting konungsvalds, 1978, pp.62-63. The first
lawman was Sturla Þórðarson, who was appointed by King Magnús in 1272.
66
22
thereby to be freed from the outlawry.69 Notably, the king alone had the right to revoke
the outlawry.
However, the law was stricter in the case of skemmdarvíg (‘a damaging killing’) or
níðingsverk (‘villainies’) such as high treason, morð (‘murder’),70 mutilation, or killing a
man protected by the pledge of peace or in asylum; those who committed such villainies
were outlawed and their deed could not be atoned with fines, but still they had chance to
go to Norway and ask the king for his mercy.71
All the killings were supposed to be judged at assemblies by royal officials
(umboðsmenn konungs), but revenge was allowed in cases where the man who had been
wronged did not accept compensation from the perpetrator, and the royal official
“neglected to remedy the injustice” (“afrœkiz rétt at gera”); in that case, the revenge
must be equal to the first act, and if there were any difference, that should be made equal
by payment of a fine: half by the avenger and half by the royal official who neglected his
duty. If the revenge was equal to the first act, then the avenger was innocent before the
king because he had demanded justice but did not get it, and the royal official alone
ought to pay the fine.72 This detailed stipulation about revenge indicates that the law
demanded that people first follow the new judicial system set by the king, but if the
system did not work properly, then private revenge was allowed as an alternative.
Likewise, it demonstrates the king’s effort to confine revenge to one retaliation, namely,
one blood-feud but not repeated feuds. This was a common trend in high-medieval
69
Helgi Þorláksson, Konungsvald og hefnd, 1997, p.252. Jónsbók 1904, pp.35-36; Jónsbók
2010, pp.32-35 (IV, 1.)
70
There was distinction between víg (‘manslaughter’) and morð (‘murder’.) If the killer did not
make public admission of the killing, the deed was a morð, and the murderer must forfeit his
property and be outlawed. Jónsbók 1904, pp.46-48; Jónsbók 2010, pp.48-53 (IV, 10.)
71
Helgi Þorláksson, Konungsvald og hefnd, 1997, p.252; Jónsbók 1904, pp.36-39, 40-42;
Jónsbók 2010, pp.34-43 (IV, 2 and IV, 4).
72
Helgi Þorláksson, Konungsvald og hefnd, 1997, p.252; Jónsbók 1904, pp.60-61; Jónsbók
2010, pp.70-71 (IV, 21)
23
Europe; the Church and secular authorities tried to eradicate repeated, escalating feuds,
but they still had to tolerate a blood-feud.73
Regardless of this concession, the stipulations on killings and violence in Jónsbók
show that the king in Norway had the right to intervene directly in disturbances in
Iceland, mainly through demanding of þegngildi and making institutionalised summons
to stand before him in person, with a possible pardon following it.74 Perpetrators who
committed killing or other crimes and were outlawed had a chance to be exonerated if
the king showed mercy at their meeting. It was, however, not always the case, and the
chance was surely limited to rich people who were able to afford the journey and to pay
the fine as well as obtain license for the return voyage to Iceland. If these rules actually
worked, killing and feuding must have been more difficult than before.
However, the killers needed to stay in churches until the ship came.75 This
indicates that otherwise there was possibility for them to suffer vengeance from someone
who was related to the victim and did not reconcile with compensation. Thus, it seems
that the idea of revenge as an alternative measure outside the judicial system did not
entirely disappear.
Summary
Through the codification by King Magnús in the 1270-80s, radical change happened to
the Icelandic constitution. The goðar system in Iceland was abolished, and the royal
officials were supposed to preside over assemblies or lawsuits.
73
Helgi Þorláksson, Feud and Feuding, 2007, p.90.
Apart from the many clauses that mention that those who commit a crime are to go abroad to
meet the king, there is a particular clause about such summons: every man who injures someone
is to go to Norway, even if some necessity has driven him to do the act. Jónsbók 1904, p.57;
Jónsbók 2010, pp.64-65 (IV, 18.)
75
Helgi Þorláksson, Konungsvald og hefnd, 1997, p.254.
74
24
Under the new ideology of rex iustus – the king as absolute judge under God’s
authority – the Norwegian kings in the late 13th century generally aimed at eradicating
repeated feuds and demanded that people follow the centralised judicial system. In
Iceland, Jónsbók stipulated that in principle royal officials ought to judge all
disturbances; the imposition of þegngildi also meant that a killing was no longer a matter
affecting only those who were involved, but a public ‘crime’ against the king. This was
seemingly a substantial shift from the old-system of self-help to public prosecution.
However, the king had to concede to an old idea of feuds; direct revenge was
allowed in cases where the royal officials neglected their duty. Thus, it can be said that
the new royal law itself could not completely follow the rex iustus ideal.
The next question is: in practice, did people give up the traditional way of feuding
or retain it?
3.
Feuds after the submission to the king
3.1
Overview
The main narrative sources for the period after 1264 are Árna saga biskups, Lárentíus
saga and some annals. Actually, the last contemporary saga is the söguþáttr (‘short
story’) of Jón Halldórsson, the Bishop of Skálaholt (1322-39), but unfortunately this
brief summary of the bishop’s life is rather like an exemplum, or a collection of edifying
fables, and does not tell us much about the events in Iceland in his time.
Árna saga biskups tells the life of Árni Þorláksson, the Bishop of Skálaholt
(1269-1298). The saga ends in the middle of events in the winter of 1290-91, and does
not continue to the bishop’s death in Norway in 1298. Árna saga is only preserved
complete in 17th-century manuscripts, but there are five fragments from the 14th century.
Two of them survived from the same manuscript, called AM 220 VI fol.
25
(c.1340-1360),76 and the other three are included in AM 122 b fol. (Reykjarfjarðarbók,
c.1375-1400),77 in which Árna saga follows Sturlunga saga and works as its epilogue.
All extant copies of Árna saga are thought to have followed Reykjarfjarðarbók.78
Lárentíus saga biskups is a saga about Lárentíus, the Bishop of Hólar (1324-31),
and covers the period until 1331 when the bishop lay on his deathbed. Lárentíus saga is
preserved almost whole in two independent vellum manuscripts: AM 406 a I 4to (A,
c.1530) and a shorter version in AM 180 b fol. (B, c.1500.)79
Annals also tell us about the events that occurred in the period up until 1430. There
are six Icelandic annals extant in 14th-century manuscripts, including the Skálaholt
fragment, and five in 16th and 17th manuscripts.80
Table 2: The Icelandic annals
No. (in Isl.Ann., 1888)
Manuscripts
Dating of MS
AM 415 4to
c.1300
GKS 2087 4to
c.1300-1328
Medieval (extant in 14th c. manuscripts)
II
IV
Annales vetustissimi
Annales regii (Konungsannáll)
or Þingeyraannáll
V
Skálholts annáll
AM 420 a 4to
c.1362
VI
The Skálholt fragment (writes about 1328-72)
AM 764 4to
c.1360-1380
VII
Lögmans annáll
AM 420 b 4to
c.1362-1390
IX
Flateyjarbókar annálar
GKS 1005 fol.
c.1387-1395
Later (extant in 16th-17th c. manuscripts)
-
Nýi annáll (writes about 1393-1430)
AM 420 c 4to
c.1575-1600
I
Annales Reseniani
AM 424 4to
c.1700
III
Høyersannáll or Henrik Høyers Annaler
AM 22 fol.
c.1600-1625
VIII Gottskálks annáll
Holm perg 5 8vo
c.1550-1560
X
AM 417 4to
c.1540-1591
76
77
78
79
80
Oddverjaannáll
Dating followed ONP: Registre, p.435.
Ibid., p.433.
Formáli in Biskupa sögur III, p.V.
Ibid., p.LVIII.
This categorisation follows Patricia Boulhosa, Of fish and ships, 2010, pp.177-184.
26
The annals had a central position as sources on the historiography of the political history
of the 14th century due to the lack of other sources, and especially of other narratives.
Eldbjørg Haug, however, has discussed the source value of the Icelandic annals and
maintains that the accounts in the annals are not contemporary narratives, as formerly
assumed, but rather secondary sources at the time of writing, and to a certain extent
based on rumours of doubtful origin; thus we have to consider the cultural context of the
period when they were written in order to interpret the accounts properly.81 It is true that
we should bear in mind that the accounts in the annals are not necessarily contemporary
testimonies, but because not all the events were written down in the annals, at least we
can see that the events that were written down had significance for the writer.
From these sources, we know about some cases of feuds or killings as listed in
Table 3.
Table 3: The list of feuding cases 1264-1400
No.
Year
Event
Source
1
1273
Guðlaugr Tannason attacked a man called Marteinn to
Ár. ch.28
avenge his father and injured him badly.
2
1296
“There was a killing-summer, and 9 stökkvivíg [‘a chain
Annals III,
of killings’]82 occurred in Iceland.”
VII, IX
– It could have been blood-feuds, but no details.
3
1306
Gissur galli (f.1269) killed a man called Höskuldr in 1306,
Annals IX
went to Norway in 1308, became a retainer of King
Hákon V in 1309, and came back to Iceland in 1312.
– It is unknown whether his killing was for revenge.
81
Eldbjørg Haug, The Icelandic annals as historical sources, 1997, p.272.
Fritzner’s ordbog says stökkvivíg is “homicide which is performed individually, one after
another with some time span,” while Cleasby-Vigfusson says stökkvivíg is an “isolated case of
manslaughter.” Stökkvivíg is for example used as an alternative for víg (‘a killing’) in different
manuscripts of Króka-Refs saga (Króka-Refs saga, ch.1 in Íslenzk fornrit XIV, footnote 4 on
p.120) In any case, I suppose ‘9 stökkvivíg’ can mean ‘a chain of killings.’
82
27
4
1309
-1310
1. Karlamagnús Magnússon from the Oddaverjar family
killed herra
83
Kolbeinn Bjarnarson, because Kolbeinn had
Annals IV,
V, VII, IX;
uttered a defamatory verse about him, though Kolbeinn
Lá.
denied it and wanted undanfærsla (‘to pledge innocence.’)
A:chs.27-8,
2. Karlamagnús and two others were killed in revenge for
B:ch.32
Kolbeinn on the initiative of his son, Þórðr Kolbeinsson.
5
1342
Conflict over sýsluvöld: Jón Hallsson vs. Arnórr Þórðarson
Annals V,
-1343
1. Jón had Arnórr’s hands and feet chopped off, on the
VI, VIII,
advice of Þorsteinn Gunhyltingr.
IX
2. Þorsteinn was killed in revenge for Arnórr.
6
1344
1. Killing of Páll Eyjólfsson.
Annals
2. Páll's sons took revenge and killed two men who
VIII, IX
presumably attended to the killing of Páll.
7
1357
A killing with no revenge: Jón murti killed a man but
Annals IX
“never went abroad and lived more than 30 years after that
and died of illness.”
– This account indicates that c.1300, every killer who had
some power sought to meet the king in Norway.
(After Helgi Þorláksson, Konungsvald og hefnd, 1997, pp.251-2, 254-5.
Ár. = Árna saga biskups and Lá. = Lárentíus saga in ÍF XVII)
At first glance, it is obvious that there is little mention of feuds in the main sources of the
period after 1264. The cases which can be defined as blood-feud count only four (Nos.1,
4, 5, 6) or five (No.2 might be included.) The number of cases is very limited, but that is
probably because of the sources’ nature: the bishop’s sagas and annals are generally not
interested in feuding. Thus the cases listed here were presumably fewer than those that
actually occurred, and we cannot say with confidence that the number of feuds declined
83
herra is an honourable title like ‘lord’ or ‘sir.’ According to Cleasby-Vigfusson’s dictionary,
herra was traditionally used to address a king or earl. In 1277 knights (riddarar; sing. riddari)
and barons were created in Norway, to whom the title of herra was given. Bishops and abbots
were also dubbed herra. I would prefer to keep the word, herra, untranslated as it stands in the
source.
28
after the submission to the king. Rather, it seems that people continued to take personal
revenge long after that.
On the other hand, it can be presumed that until around 1300 to seek an audience
with the king in Norway became common, as is indicated by accounts in annals, such as
the account of 1357 in the Flateyjarbókar annálar (no.7 in Table 3.)84 However, going
to Norway and seeking a pardon from the king would have cost so much that it was
probably the sole prerogative of high-ranking and rich men. There was a possibility that
even poor killers obtained the king’s mercy through doing difficult task for the king, and
that might have resulted in gaining fame and changing their social status in Iceland, but it
is unknown whether it was common; the sources unfortunately tell us little about the
relationship between the king and the men who came to meet him for seeking a pardon.85
Did the summons to Norway open a way to be upstarts – so-called ‘new men,’ those who
climbed the ladder of success after the end of the Free State through becoming the king’s
men? We shall return to this issue later in the case study, in section 5.3.
3.2
A close look: a blood-feud between Marteinn and Guðlaugr (1273)
Next, in order to take a close look at feuding under kingship, I pick up the case of
revenge in 1273 (No.1 in Table 3), because this case is told in Árna saga biskups and is
relatively more detailed than the other cases.
In the winter of 1273, Guðlaugr Tannason attacked a man called Marteinn to
avenge his father, who was killed in 1252 (Ár.28:45-47.)86 This attack occurred right in
84
Isl.Ann. p.406; Helgi Þorláksson, Konungsvald og hefnd, 1997, p.254.
Helgi Þorláksson, Konungsvald og hefnd, 1997, pp.254-6: Gissur galli (f.1269) would have
been an example for this social promotion through the summons and service to the king, but
there are no more examples.
86
Ár. = Árna saga biskups in Biskupa sögur III (Íslenzk fornrit XVII.) The citation follows the
pattern: ‘chapter:page.’ All translations are my own, from consulting the Norwegian translation,
Biskop Arnes saga, translated by Gunhild & Magnús Stefánsson, 2007.
85
29
front of the bishop, when he was riding along with Marteinn,87 and the blood spurted all
over the bishop’s clothes. Marteinn did not die, but was badly injured.
The saga carefully explains the background of this blood-feud. Apparently this was
a feud between Marteinn and Guðlaugr, because Marteinn had earlier killed Tanni, father
of Guðlaugr, in Dalir (1252.) But Páll, brother of Marteinn, was killed to avenge Tanni
soon after that: Marteinn had fled after the killing of Tanni and reached Páll, who helped
him by giving him a faster horse than the one he had ridden, and thereby Marteinn
succeeded in escaping, but Páll himself did not flee and was killed, probably by the men
who were chasing Marteinn. These two killings, of Tanni and Páll, were adjudged to
equate to each other. However, since Guðlaugr Tannason was a child at that time and
was not asked to join the settlement, he felt that he missed out on compensation for his
father’s death from Marteinn (Ár.28:46.)
The bishop went into a rage over this matter, the saga says, for these reasons: one
was that the bishop himself would have suffered the axe-blow if the axe slipped off
Marteinn, because their shoulders lay very close together; the next was that Marteinn
was unprepared for the ambush because he was in the presence of the bishop who
enjoyed immunity. Apart from these two reasons concerning the bishop’s immunity, the
bishop declared Marteinn innocent, because his matter of killing had already been
judged before, and the truce was granted.
But, the saga continues, Guðlaugr cared little about the bishop’s wrath, so that he
had to take “great penance for a while and the greater excommunication by Bishop Árni”
(“stórar skriptir um stund ok stórmæli Árna biskups”) until the time when he had reached
87
Marteinn Másson was for long the steward of the monastery at Helgafell under Abbot Óláfr
Hjörleifsson. He is named Ívarsson in some manuscripts of Árna saga, and the editions of
Sturlunga saga – Sts.1946, II, p.125 and Sts.1988, II, p.592 and p.788 (Árna saga biskups) – call
him Marteinn Ívarsson. Guðrún Ása Grímsdóttir, the editor of Árna saga in ÍF, presumes that
Marteinn was half-brother of Páll Ívarsson from a different father. Footnote 5 on Ár., pp.45-6.
30
the settlement with the bishop. Guðlaugr was required to reconcile with both on account
of the dishonour that the bishop thought had been done to him, and the wound that
Marteinn received (Ár.28:46-47.) The end of matter is described as follows:
Vóru mál þeirra dæmd á alþingi, en þó stóð Guðlaugr undir skriptum hörðum um
stundar sakir. Hafði hann ok tveim sinnum öðrum leitat mein at gera Marteini. En um
síðir líknaði herra byskup Guðlaugi fyrir bæn herra Þórðar Hallssonar á Möðruvöllum
ok tók af honum sína óblíðu.
(Their case was judged in the General Assembly, but nevertheless Guðlaugr suffered
hard penance for a while. He had also twice before tried to hurt Marteinn. But in the
end, the bishop forgave Guðlaugr at the request of herra Þórðr Hallsson at
Möðruvellir and alleviated his former hostility towards him)
(Ár.28:47)
The traditional logic of feuds: a rightful revenge?
At first sight, the process seems to be in accordance with the traditional way of conflict
resolution in Iceland – the case was brought to the General Assembly, and the mediation
by a prominent farmer (Þórðr Hallsson á Möðruvöllum, who had become a knight in
129288) led to the final settlement. The remarkable thing is, however, the bishop’s
determined initiative in punishing Guðlaugr with penance or excommunication. Before
88
Later, the bishop married his niece, Guðný, to Þórðr Hallsson (Ár.34:52.) Randi Wærdahl
counted him as sýslumaðr (1292-1312) and riddari (‘knight’; Wærdahl, Norges konges rike,
2006, p.263), while Sigríður Beck counted him just as riddari (Beck, I kungens frånvaro, 2011,
p.257.) I checked their source material, Íslenzkar ártiðaskrár eða Obituaria Islandica, but did
not find any mention of his being sýslumaðr. At the least he was knighted at the Norwegian court,
and definitely became one of the most prominent Icelanders around 1300.
31
analysing this bishop’s initiative, let us look at the other parts of the process more
carefully.
The killing of Tanni, Guðlaugr’s father, is also mentioned in Þorgils saga skarða,
but there is not much detail, merely that there were killings in Dalir in the spring of
1252: Marteinn killed Tanni Gunnlaugsson, and Páll Ívarsson, Marteinn’s brother, was
killed. After St. Martin’s day (11 November), Marteinn came from the north to meet
Þorgils skarði at Staðarstaðr, who welcomed him following the advice of Priest Páll
(Hallsson, the priest at Geirröðareyri.) Afterwards Marteinn joined in Þorgils’s followers,
after having been placed under penance and kárína, i.e., required to fast for 40 days.89
This penance was probably imposed by Priest Páll, although the brief note in the saga
does not say so definitively. Later, in December 1252, when Hrafn Oddsson attacked
Þorgils skarði at Stafaholt, he was eager to find Marteinn Ívarsson, and called him
‘fjandinn (‘the devil,’ or ‘the enemy’)’, although Marteinn was not there.90 Marteinn
was thus probably present earlier at the meeting at Hella on 25 November 1252, where
the negotiations between Þogils skarði and Hrafn Oddsson with Sturla Þórðarson broke
down, and Marteinn then stood against Hrafn Oddsson on behalf of Þorgils.
Árna saga, on the other hand, does not mention Marteinn’s penance, but in other
points Árna saga is much more detailed about the killing of Marteinn than Þorgils saga
skarða. Why, then, does the saga explain so carefully the background of this blood-feud?
One plausible reason is to justify the bishop’s behaviour. In this matter the bishop
declared Marteinn innocent and explicitly accused Guðlaugr as the avenger, and so the
saga needed to explain clearly why Marteinn was considered to be innocent. Two of the
bishop’s reasons to blame Guðlaugr concerned religious matters, but the last one – that
Marteinn was innocent “because the matter was already judged before and the truce were
89
90
Sts.1946, II, p.125; Sts.1988, II, p.592.
Sts.1946, II, p.130; Sts.1988, II, p.597.
32
granted” (“þar sem áðr var dæmt málit ok veittar tryggðir”) – was totally secular, and a
traditional justification for feuds in Iceland; this blood-feud occured after the acceptance
of Járnsíða (accepted completely on 11 November 1273. Ár.26:43), but the process
shows no trace of the king’s new ideal to restrict homicide.
On the other hand, Guðlaugr’s logic was as follows: his revenge was rightful
because he did not participate in the settlement, nor did he gain the compensation from
Marteinn, because of his youth. Bishop Árni did not accept Guðlaugr’s justification at all,
but his attitude towards Guðlaugr may well have been shared only by the bishop and
clerics, because this story is narrated in the saga which is obviously biased in favour of
Bishop Árni; the question is: was Guðlaugr’s act also regarded as unacceptable by
secular people?
This is difficult to answer, because the saga does not mention the attitude of any
people other than the bishop. However, we can make an educated guess from the
situation. Guðlaugr insisted that he was not in the party that reconciled with Marteinn in
1252 because of his youth, and that he missed out on compensation for his father. But
presumably, the killings in 1252 were not settled with money, and none of the other
relatives of Tanni received monetary compensation from Marteinn. At the settlement in
1252, “the case were put in judgement, and the killings [of Tanni and Páll] were judged
to be set off against each other [i.e., one corpse for another.]”91 This means that the
damages on both sides were deemed equal, and so no more money compensation would
be needed and no more attacks would be allowed.
Indeed, feuds could be escalated even if the damages on both sides were resolved
with money or blood, as long as someone influential in the parties concerned did not
agree with the balance of loss and felt his/her honour to be lost, just like húskarlavíg in
91
Ár.28:46: “Málin vóru í dóm lagin ok felluz vígin í faðma.”
33
Njáls saga.92 There is a possibility that Guðlaugr, or someone behind him (possibly his
mother), did not agree with the balance of loss in 1252, and considered revenge on
Marteinn rightful and necessary as soon as Guðlaugr was of an age to take an action.93
Since the saga remarks that Guðlaugr had twice tried to hurt Marteinn before this attack
in 1273, he seems to have strongly believed in the necessity of his act.
Nevertheless, we can presume that Guðlaugr’s act was hardly thought to be justified
by secular people, as well as the bishop, because his act was judged by the General
Assembly and not mediated in advance of the lawsuit. If there had been a shared opinion
among (influential) people that the revenge was rightful, some third party would have
mediated between the feuding parties and push for a settlement that would leave honour
on both sides, and so avoid a lawsuit and judgement that would come down hard on one
side or the other. Thus, it is most likely that Guðlaugr could not garner wide sympathy
and support for his vengeance, and as a result the matter was judged in a lawsuit. The
mediation by Þórðr Hallsson, which took place after Guðlaugr was judged in the
assembly, was in this sense not a normal mediation designed to avoid judgement
between the feuding parties, Guðlaugr and Marteinn.
About the lawsuit itself, the saga’s brief description is as follows: “their case was
judged in the General Assembly, but nevertheless Guðlaugr suffered hard penance for a
while.” It does not tell us how the lawsuit was performed and what kind of judgement
was made; since there was no mention of Guðlaugr being outlawed, this matter would
have been settled with monetary compensation. But it is unknown if the lawsuit was
92
Miller, Bloodtaking, 1990, pp.183-4. Furthermore, the value of a corpse was not neutral, but
changeable according to the reputation and social status of the dead; the eye of a free
scoundrel was not equal to the eye of a free man of good will. Ibid., p.184.
93
Akin to the revenge of Bolli by his sons in Laxdæla saga. Guðrún, Bolli’s widow, and their
sons (one was four years old and the other was unborn at the time of their father’s death) did not
accept compensation for Bolli, and 12 years later the sons were goaded by Guðrún to take
revenge for their father.
34
presided over by royal officials and judged according to the new law, Járnsíða, or if
Guðlaugr paid some fine to the king. So far, the justifications proposed by both the
bishop and Guðlaugr were in accordance with the traditional logic in feuding cases in
Iceland, and there is no clear evidence of the king’s new ideal or the judicial system. In
contrast, the way the matter was resolved was not totally traditional, due to the bishop’s
determined intervention.
Penance: the development of ecclesiastical jurisdiction?
The saga says, the settlement was demanded of Guðlaugr “both for the dishonour
[ósómi] that the bishop thought to be done to himself and the wound that Marteinn got”
(Ár.28:46-47.)94; the wound of Marteinn was settled with the judgement in the assembly,
while the dishonour to the bishop was not dealt with by a secular court. What, then, was
the bishop’s dishonour in this case?
From the bishop’s viewpoint, Guðlaugr had violated a canonical right by breaking
the immunity of clerics. The immunity of clerics was generally accepted in Iceland by
1240,95 and was set out in Árni’s Church Law (ch.7) as follows: “every man who
mistreats a cleric or a monk with a hostile hand, is to be banned by his act itself until he
gets redemption according to God’s law under observance of the bishop.”96 Also, there
is a stipulation about öfundarblóð (‘the blood shed in enmity’): if blood shed in enmity
spoiled a church or a church-yard, then singing a mass may not occur in that church
before the bishop had cleansed it with consecrated water and with the songs that are
94
“bæði fyrir þann ósóma er biskupi þótti til sín gerr ok þann áverka er Marteinn fekk af
honum.”
95
Sverrir Jakobsson, Friðarviðleitni, 1998, pp.17-24. He cited the letter from the Archbishop of
Niðarós in 1173 as the first appearance of the idea of the immunity of clerics in Iceland, though
Icelandic clerics did not stop being under arms long after that.
96
Járnsíða 2005, pp.152-3: “hverr er heiftugri hendi misþyrmir klerk eða klaustramanni, þá er
hann í banni af sjálfs síns verki þar til er hann fær lausn eftir guðs lögum með forsjá byskups.”
35
specially arranged for such occasions, while blood without enmity never spoils a
church.97 The Church Law promulgated by Bishop Árni, which was accepted at the
General Assembly in 1275 to be applied to the Skálaholt bishopric, had not yet been
presented by the year 1273, but at least we can see the bishop’s idea reflected in the law.
In the case of Guðlaugr, although he did not intend to hurt the bishop himself, there
was a real chance that the attack would have accidently struck the bishop. And actually
unclean ‘blood shed in enmity’ spilt over the bishop. This was an unacceptable insult to
the bishop.
This emphasis on the bishop’s determined attitude is certainly because of the saga
source’s nature; Árna saga was not so entertaining as sagas of other genres, but rather
was a literary work, which probably received less feedback from the audience/readers.
That would have made the saga more ideologically biased. Bishop Árni’s intent to make
a case of his own importance as a bishop seems to have been behind the expression of
his wrath against Guðlaugr, who should have considered the bishop’s presence and given
up the attack, but did not. This situation meant that if the bishop forgave Guðlaugr’s
offense, this would risk his authority in the society. In this context, we can understand
how the mediation by Þórðr Hallsson worked. It was a mediation between the bishop and
Guðlaugr: not only Guðlaugr but also the bishop needed mediation; the bishop could not
retract his accusation against Guðlaugr by himself, for this could have caused his
dishonour. In this sense, the traditional code of honour in feuding was still central to the
course of revenge and mediation.98
In order to understand the bishop’s position in society, let us take a brief look at the
Church’s effort to establish ecclesiastical jurisdiction independent of secular authority. In
97
Járnsíða 2005, p.151.
“A mutual concern with honour prevents the adversaries from seeking settlements themselves
and it is necessary for some third party to intervene in order that the opposing parties may be
reconciled.” Helgi Þorláksson, Feud and Feuding, 2007, p.74.
98
36
Norway, following the establishment of the archbishop’s seat in 1152/53, the Church
gradually developed independent judicial authority in clerical matters and over laymen in
spiritual matters pertaining to Church Law.99 At this time, i.e., in the 1270s, there was a
debate between Archbishop Jón rauði (1268-82) and King Magnús lagabætir Hákonarson
(1263-80) over legislation and jurisdiction in Norway. Their negotiations resulted in a
concordat in Tønsberg in 1277, although after the death of King Magnús a new, severe
strife occurred in the 1280s (see below, ch.5.) Bishop Árni, who was consecrated by Jón
rauði in 1269 and was strongly influenced by this archbishop, also involved himself in
this political strife and persistently tried to establish Church autonomy in Iceland. Bishop
Árni’s struggle for the Church’s freedom is the main theme throughout his saga.100 Thus,
the episode of penance inflicted on Guðlaugr may be seen as an indicator of the
development of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Iceland.
However, it should be noted that this bishop’s involvement in conflicts was not
necessarily radical in the 1270s. Ecclesiastical punishment was common from the
Sturlung Era onwards, as Marteinn himself received penance for his killing in 1252 (see
above, footnote 89.) In the severe political struggles of the Sturlung Era,
excommunication was effectively used by bishops – most often by Guðmundr Arason
and Heinrekr Kársson – as a spiritual weapon to compete with secular chieftains.101
There was also a gradual advance in the peace movement in Iceland from the late 12th
century onwards, encouraged by the archbishops in Niðarós,102 and pilgrimage after
killings became popular in the 13th century.103 Thus, there was an expectation on the
99
MSE, p.91, ‘Church organization and function’ by Magnús Stefánsson.
Although the main focus of the bishop’s struggle concerned control of Church properties, the
saga also shows many cases in which Bishop Árni judged on various matters pertaining to
Church Law, such as the celibacy of a sub-deacon, see Ár.27:44-45.
101
Sverrir Jakobsson, Friðarviðleitni kirkjunnar, 1998, p.35.
102
Ibid., pp.17ff.
103
Ibid., p.22.
100
37
Church to promote peace and hinder violence and killings. Although the radical,
‘revolutionary’ aspect of Bishop Árni’s Church movement in Iceland was sometimes
emphasised, we should not forget that his disinclination towards Guðlaugr was an
extension of practices set in place by preceding bishops.
As a last note: Guðlaugr’s revenge is only recorded in Árna saga. Most probably
this is because the bishop himself was involved in the affair; otherwise, this event could
hardly have been mentioned in the saga.104 Since feuds were not a matter of interest in
the bishop’s sagas and annals – unlike the Sagas of Icelanders or Sturlunga saga – we
cannot expect as much information about feuds for the period after 1262 as for the
preceding period.
Summary
The case of Guðlaugr’s blood-feud occurred in 1273, after the new law, Járnsíða, had
been accepted, but nevertheless its process showed no trace of the king’s new ideal to
ban feuds. There is more emphasis on the traditional way of feuding in Iceland, such as
the chain of revenge, a lawsuit in the assembly and a prominent man’s mediation
prompting settlement. The bishop’s treatment of Guðlaugr by imposing penance appears
to be an indicator of the development of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, but if we take into
account the application of ecclesiastical punishment in the Sturlung Era, it does not seem
a total novelty, but rather an extension of practices followed by the preceding bishops in
Iceland.
But this revenge occurred in 1273, shortly after the acceptance of Járnsíða, and the
first killing occurred before the submission to the king. It is thus understandable that the
influence of the king’s new ideology and judicial system was not shown in the course of
104
Helgi Þorláksson, Konungsvald og hefnd, 1997, p.251.
38
event. However, the other cases of feuds in the years heading towards the 14th century
indicate that people in Iceland still kept on taking revenge long after the submission to
the king; at least, they did not stop claiming their rights by direct violence.
On the other hand, the institutionalised summons to the king was presumably
working effectively. However, from the limited description we have about feuds, it is
hard to know the connection between the traditional practice and the new judicial system
under the king’s rule. Thus, it would be more p
romising to look at the wider context of conflicts, and not just to be limited to cases of
feuds.
4.
Conflict resolution under kingship: the case of Loptr Helgason
In this and next chapter, I focus on one case, involving Loptr Helgason in Árna saga
biskups, in order to provide a snapshot of how conflicts were resolved by the kingship.
Loptr Helgason [modern spelling is Loftur Helgason] was the eldest son of Ásbjörg,
a sister of Bishop Árni Þorláksson and Helgi Loptsson (Ár.1:4.) Loptr was not a cleric,
but was the steward (ræðismaðr, ráðmaðr) of Skálaholt (Ár.59:84) and was obviously
close to the bishop. Loptr married Borghildr, a daughter of Eyjólfr ofsi, brother of
Ásgrímr Þorsteinsson, with the bishop’s help. This marriage caused great amity between
Bishop Árni and Ásgrímr. Ásgrímr became a sheriff (sýslumaðr), a royal official under
Hrafn Oddsson in two administrative disticts or sýslur (sing. sýsla). Árgrímr was in
charge of the sýsla of Rangárþing and even all of the east right up to Skeiðarársandur,
and also the sýsla of Árnesþing, all thanks to the bishop’s help (Ár.58:82.)105 The
friendship between Bishop Árni and Ásgrímr was so great “that no one could act against
105
Also, see footnote 3 on Ár., p.82.
39
their will, where they stood in one way on matters” (Ár.59:84.)106 However, discord
soon arose among these affines.
4.1
Beginning of the conflict with Ásgrímr sýslumaðr (1277-78)
As set out in ch.60 of Árna saga, a conflict took place in 1277-78 while a royal
representative, Eindriði böggull, was in Iceland. 107 There was a man called Björn, who
was a good farmer (góðr bóndi) and was married to a kinswoman of Bishop Árni.108
This man fell into disagreement with Ásgrímr Þorsteinsson. Björn managed to have his
relative Loptr stand by him, but Ásgrímr took it badly that Loptr valued another man as
much as him in spite of their close affinities by marriage. Ásgrímr thus tried to bring a
lawsuit against both Björn and Loptr. Ásgrímr heard a rumour saying that “they, Björn
and Loptr, had spoken in a more disrespectful way about the kingship than was seemly”
(“þeir Björn ok Loptr hefði talat ósæmiligar til konungsdómsins en byrjaði” Ár.60:84);
he made use of the rumour and accused them of high treason. Then Bishop Árni
informed the royal agent, Eindriði, of this matter. Eindriði flew into a rage and
immediately summoned both Loptr and Björn to the court in Norway (“stefnir þeim
báðum utan þegar í stað” Ár.60:85.) Following the arrival of Loptr and Björn, Bishop
Árni arranged a meeting of those involved: Loptr, Björn, Ásgrímr and Eindriði böggull.
106
“at engir menn gátu nær í aðra skál lagt en þeir vildu þar sem þeir stóðu einn veg at málum.”
Eindriði böggull came to Iceland in the summer of 1277 (Ár.44:64) and stayed until 1278
(Ár.49:71.)
108
We do not have any other information about this Björn Þorsteinsson beyond what we learn in
ch.60 of Árna saga, which relates that he lived in Hruni and sometimes in Miðfell (in
Hrunamannahreppur) and was góðr bóndi and married to Þóra Hjarrandadóttir, a kinswoman of
the bishop. Góðr bóndi can mean a wealthy and powerful, self-sufficient householder. Also since
Hruni was a staðr – a self-owning ecclesiastical institution – there may have been certain close
relations between Björn and Bishop Árni, who therefore might have been favourable towards
Björn and secured the staðr Hruni for him. About Hruni, see Helgi Þorláksson, Hruni, 1998 or
Helgi Þorláksson ed., Church Centres, 2005, pp.46-7.
107
40
Þeir Loptr ok Björn afsaka sik ok verðr eigi svá atburðrinn at nauðsyn stæði til
undanfærslu. Því varð þat at sætt at þeir sóru trúnaðareiða herra Magnúsi konungi ok
Eiríki konungi ok hertoganum Hákoni. Þeir lögðu til þess hönd á bók ok því skutu
þeir til Guðs at þeir skyldu honum hollir ok trúir leynilega ok opinberliga ok hvergi
vera í móti konungs umboðsmanni þar sem hann talaði lög ok réttandi. Eptir þat gaf
Eindriði bóndi upp utanstefningar ok sættuz þeir herra Ásgrímr ok Björn. Vóru þeir
Loptr mágarnir eptir þat hinir beztu vinir.
(Loptr and Björn made an excuse, and it so happened that there was deemed no need
for a pledge of innocence. Thus it was agreed that they would swear the oath of
fidelity to herra Magnúss, the king, and King Eiríkr and Duke Hákon. For that they
placed their hands on the book [i.e., the Bible] and then called God to witness that
they were obliged to him [i.e., the king] to be faithful and loyal both secretly and
openly, and never to be against a king’s representative when he spoke on law and
rights. After that Eindriði bóndi withdrew the summons and they, herra Ásgrímr and
Björn, were reconciled. They, Loptr and his mágr [Ásgrímr],109 became the best of
friends after that.)
(Ár. 60:85)
Although we cannot know whether Loptr and Björn actually spoke in a ‘disrespectful
way’ about the kingship, as Ásgrímr asserted, at least Ásgrímr could make use of the
rumour to accuse them, and his allegation was serious enough to make the royal
representative determined to summon the two at once.
109
mágr (pl. mágar) is a male relative by marriage, like a brother-, father-, or son-in-law.
41
Útanstefning (‘Summons’)
What, then, was new in this process? First, I would like to focus on útanstefning, the
summons to the Norwegian court. Summoning of treasonable men was not uncommon
among the king’s retainers in Iceland before the submission to the king in 1262-64; in
the Sturlung Era, King Hákon Hákonarson often summoned his Icelandic retainers to
him whenever he found they disobeyed him. That summons, however, was based on
court law (hirðskrá) and was confined to the king’s own men, who were bound by it; the
king could not summon Icelanders who were not king’s men.110 But in our case, the men
who were summoned, Björn and Loptr, were not then king’s men. The crucial point here
is that by this time, following the submission in 1262-64, all Icelanders became the
king’s subjects (þegnar), and thus the king had the right to summon every Icelander, not
just his own vassals.111 And a royal agent from Norway actually intended to execute this
right in Iceland in the 1270s. Thus, the introduction of the idea of þegnar to Iceland
seems to have been fundamental to the expansion of the king’s influence there.
The summons of treasonable royal retainers in the Sturlung Era was based on
hirðskrá; then, was there then any legal ground for the summons in the case we are
looking at, of 1277-78? Because a new law-code, Járnsíða, had already been accepted in
Iceland in 1271-73, we should examine it to see if it includes some stipulations
concerning this case.
110
For example, when a serious feud occurred between the Norwegian merchants and an
Icelandic chieftain-family, Oddaverjar, leading to the killing of a Norwegian in Iceland in 1219,
the Norwegian court took it seriously, but young King Hákon Hákonarson could not summon the
killers to Norway, and Earl Skúli, the actual co-ruler at that time, instead suggested sending an
army to Iceland. Íslendingasaga, chs.35, 38 (Sts.1946, I, pp.269-70, 277-78.)
111
The case of Sturla Þórðarson’s journey to Norway in 1263 might be the earliest case of this
kind of summons of a þegn who did not then directly join the king’s court (although Sturla was
not actually summoned by the king – it was the pressure of King Hákon’s disfavour towards him
that impelled him.) Sturlu þáttr, chs.1-2 (Sts.1946, II, pp.227-235.) In 1264, Þorvarðr
Þórarinsson was summoned to King Magnús, because he had killed a retainer of King Hákon,
though he was not a retainer of King Hákon or Magnús at that time. Magnúss saga lagabætis,
p.362.
42
Undanfærsla and the oath of fidelity
The details in the saga are brief: “they, Björn and Loptr, had spoken in a more
disrespectful way about the kingship than was seemly” (Ár.60:85); Guðrún Ása
Grímsdóttir, the editor of the ÍF version of Árna saga, suggests that they were suspected
of having spoken treacherously about the king.112 In order to be freed from this
allegation, undanfærsla was necessary, according to Járnsíða, allowing them to pledge
their innocence under oath before witnesses.113
On hearing their excuses, however, Eindriði found their case not as serious as he
had thought, and it turned out that undanfærsla was not necessary. Nevertheless, the two
men were asked to swear ‘the oath of fidelity’ (trúnaðareiðr – an oath which needed no
witnesses.) Why was this oath demanded of them?
To answer this, we first need to look into the general usage of ‘the oath of fidelity’
in 13th-century Iceland. This oath was not indigenous to Iceland, although various kinds
of oaths were common there. It was first adopted in Norway (institutionalised in the
hirðskrá of King Magnús in 1270) from Western Europe, where it was already well
established in the Merovingian period; the Icelandic version was an adaptation of the
Norwegian. According to Grégory Cattaneo’s analysis, we have at least ten occurrences
of trúnaðareiðr in Sturlunga saga, and this type of oath seems to have appeared in
Iceland after c.1228, when “Iceland passed from a chieftaincy to an organization
dependent upon huge domains”,114 this was a time when the Norwegian king had a
substantial influence on Icelandic political matters. The oath of fidelity was sworn either
by an individual or by a group. We can see two aspects of this oath in Iceland:
112
Footnote 1 on Ár., p.85
NgL I, p.272; Járnsíða 2005, p.87 (mannhelgi, ch.24.) A similar issue appears in Jónsbók
1904, pp.66-67 (ch.26 Um skáldskapamál – concerning slander in verse form); Jónsbók 2010,
pp.78-79. Also ch.24 in Jónsbók 1904, pp.64-65 (Jónsbók 2010, pp.74-77) deals with insulting
words and landráð.
114
Grégory Cattaneo, The oath of fidelity in Iceland, 2010, p.9.
113
43
1. An agreement and a symbol of peacemaking between two opposing parties which
involve the king or some Icelandic overlords.
2. A mark of submission to the crown of Norway (in this case, the king could delegate
his authority to his representatives in order to make the people swear the oath.)
Among the examples in Sturlunga saga, it is notable that the oath was sometimes used as
a procedure for establishing the settlements that followed battles.115 Thus the oath of
fidelity in 1277-78 was not new in itself, but clearly had two possible meanings, as
outlined above (a symbol of peace-making and/or a mark of submission to the king.) The
royal representative probably meant to secure the protagonists’ absolute obedience to the
king (as in type 2), but there is also the possibility that the Icelanders, Loptr and Björn,
took the oath simply as a sign of settlement (as in type 1.)
Before the submission in 1262-64 there were no legal grounds for the oath of
fidelity, except in hirðskrá, which only bound the king’s retainers, but in 1278 a clear
formula of the oath was written in Járnsíða. The oath sworn by Loptr and Björn possibly
took the same form as the ‘farmer’s oath’ (bóndaeiðr) at konungstekja (the approval of a
king)116 described in Járnsíða.117 That ‘farmer’s oath’ followed the oath made by the
king himself and that made by the aristocracy (lendir menn og hirðstjórar.) Here is the
formula of the oath for ‘farmers and the public’ (bændur og alþýða) in Járnsíða:
115
For example, Þórðar saga kakala in 1242 (Sts.1988, II, p.529; Sts.1946, II, p.67), or Þórðar
saga kakala in 1246 (Sts.1988, II, p.543; Sts.1946, II, p.84). Cattaneo did not address this matter
in his article in 2010, but did in his oral presentation at Hugvísindaþing in spring 2011, at the
University of Iceland. I was also fortunate to have had the chance to speak with him afterwards.
116
Orning, Unpredictability, 2008, p.73: konungstekja “normally consisted of the royal
candidate asking those assembled at the þing to accept him as king. If this was approved, the
king was given the name of king and granted land and subjects. He then swore to maintain the
national law, whereupon the assembly swore an oath of allegiance to him.”
117
Footnote 2, on Ár., p.85.
44
Nv at bændr oc alþyða vite sek þui skylldugare til hollostu oc þegnskylldv oc lyðne
við konong þa skulo þæir þenna eið sueria kononge sua marger menn af fylke hverio
sem honom likar. þess leggiom vær hond a þessa helga doma oc þui skiotum vær til
guðs at vær skulom holler oc truir vera varum kononge bæðe opinberlega oc leynilega
með ollom varum styrk oc mátt
(Now so that the farmers and the public recognise their obligation to show allegiance
and the duties of a subject, and to offer obedience to the king, they should swear this
oath to the king, as many men from each district as pleases him: “to this we place our
hands on these holy relics and call upon God to witness that we shall be loyal and true
to our king, both openly and secretly, with all our strength and might”)
(NgL I, p.264, translation and emphasis mine)118
The wording underlined here is similar to that in Árna saga, which reads “Þeir lögðu til
þess hönd á bók119 ok því skutu þeir til Guðs at þeir skyldu honum hollir ok trúir
leynilega ok opinberliga” (Ár.60:85, cited above.) Jónsbók also contains an almost
identical formula at konungstekja,120 and actually a similar formula also appears in
hirðskrá.121 Thus, even though the case of 1278 was not konungstekja, the formula was
probably the same, and a quite common one for an oath of fidelity to the king.122 If we
can accept this, then it follows that the king’s representative probably demanded absolute
118
Cf. Járnsíða 2005, pp.72-73 (Kristinsdómsbálkur, ch.7.)
Here ‘á bók’ is not exactly same as ‘a þessa helga doma’ in the text of Járnsíða, but since
‘helgar dómar’ means ‘holy relics’ and includes the holy book, it expresses same thing.
120
Jónsbók 1904, pp.29-30; Jónsbók 2010, pp.456-9.
121
Cattaneo, The oath of fidelity in Iceland, 2010, p.6.
122
It is unknown if the saga writer in the early 14th century followed the formula in Járnsíða or
in Jónsbók, or just recorded a common wording for the oath. Probably he did not cite Járnsíða
because this lawbook was soon superceded by Jónsbók in 1281, and the people of the 14th
century hardly knew the text of Járnsíða, which is extant in only one manuscript: AM 334 fol. or
Staðarhólsbók, dated to c.1260-1281.
119
45
obedience from the swearers, just as with konungstekja, but the swearers, Loptr and
Björn, might simply have intended to secure the settlement with the king. From the
ruler’s point of view, the oath of fidelity made in 1277-78 was presumably a legal
institution which bound the subjects as a whole, but for his subjects, it was possibly still
a means to confirm personal ties in face-to-face relationships, as it had been at an earlier
stage of its development.
In their oath, Loptr and Björn also swore “never to be against a king’s
representative when he spoke on law and rights.” This wording is not included in the
formula set out in Járnsíða or Jónsbók, and it gives us an impression of the authority of
the king’s representatives. In our case, a Norwegian royal representative actually
imposed a summons and demanded that the inhabitants of Iceland make an oath of
fidelity to kings, although this power was not common among the Icelandic king’s men,
at least not in the 1270-80s. We shall return to this point later on, in section 5.3.
The bishop’s mediation
Before we move to consider a further episode involving Loptr, we should look at the
bishop’s role in the matter of Loptr and Björn. Mediation played a fundamental part in
feuding. Compared to societies where unilateral kinship is dominant, especially in
Iceland, intricate, bilateral kinship and marriage relationships exerted strong pressure on
negotiated settlements.123 In such matters, the bishop must have been caught up in a
dilemma and felt a strong impulse to arrange a settlement, due to his close relationships
with both sides,124 but why did he choose to involve the royal agent? There is no
mention of the bishop’s motive in the saga, but probably he expected the king’s man to
123
In unilateral kinship societies, e.g. among North African or Middle East tribes or clans, feuds
can be almost infinite. Helgi Þorláksson, Feud and feuding, 2007, pp.72-3.
124
Loptr was his nephew and Björn’s wife was his kinswoman. The great friendship between
Ásgrímr and the bishop at that time is emphasised in nearby chapters, although longstanding
discord grew between the two from around 1280 onwards, as we have seen. Ár., pp.97ff.
46
solve the case, because the allegation concerned the crown and was thought to be serious.
The bishop’s action indicates that he shared the new idea of þegnskylda – the obligation
of subjects to the king – and considered Björn and Loptr to be in breach of this
obligation, if the allegation were true.
However, the bishop did not entirely transfer the matter to the royal agent’s hands
and indeed arranged the meeting in order to make settlement. Moreover, if there were no
allegation of high treason in this case, the bishop might not have involved Eindriði, but
instead tried to solve the matter in his own way, in accordance with the native custom of
mediation and compromise, just as in the case of blood-feud raised by Guðlaugr
Tannason in 1273 (as we saw in ch.3.) Thus, we can presume that the king’s intervention
in conflicts in Iceland was confined to those matters pertaining to the kingship; the
traditional ways of reaching mediation and compromise were still effective in most
matters.
4.2
The allegation of landráðamaðr (1281)
In the next chapter of Árna saga (ch.61), the story jumps to an event in 1280-81 when
another royal representative, Loðinn leppr, stayed in Iceland. He came with the mission
to make Icelanders swear oath of fidelity to the new king of Norway, young Eiríkr. He
attended assemblies all over Iceland along with Jón lögmaðr (‘lawman’), an Icelandic
royal official, and made all the participants swear the oath. Bishop Árni behaved
amicably towards the royal representative. The saga remarks that Loptr also swore the
oath in an assembly with farmers (bændr).125 This was his second oath of fidelity to
King Eiríkr and Duke Hákon, since he had sworn it to them and King Magnús in
125
Ár.61:86: “Sór fyrrnefndr Loptr frændi hans [the bishop’s] með bændum þenna eið.”
47
1277-78, as we have seen. There is no mention of the formula of the oath here, but it was
presumably the same as ‘the farmer’s oath’ cited above.126
Loðinn leppr had another mission: to make Icelanders accept a new law-code,
Jónsbók. In the winter of 1280-81, the populace appraised this new law and found many
points unacceptable.127 Then, at the General Assembly of 1281, the participants decided
not to accept Jónsbók as a whole, and each of the three groups – ‘the bishop (Árni),
clerics and the bishop’s friends’ (byskup ok klerkar ok vinir byskups); ‘king’s men’
(handgengnir menn); and ‘farmers’ (bændr) – wrote down the points of their disapproval.
On hearing their demands read out in the Law Council, Loðinn leppr flew into a rage:
Herra Loðinn varð við þetta mjök heitr at búkarlar gerðu sik svá digra at þeir hugðu at
skipa lögum í landi, þeim sem konungr einn saman átti at ráða. Þar næst krafði hann
almenning at játa allri bók greinarlaust. Hverir svöruðu fyrir sik at þeir mundu eigi
gera at tapa svá frelsi landins. Loðinn svarar at móti at þeir áttu fyrst at já bókinni ok
biðja síðan miskunnar um þá hluti sem nauðsyn þætti til standa, konunginn ok hans
ráð. Eptir þat lætr hann lesa konungsbréf þat er honum bauð þat at láta lögleiða bókina,
ok kvað hann reiði mundu sæta þá sem öðruvíss gerðu.
(Herra Loðinn became very angry on account of the peasants behaving arrogantly,
believing that they had the right to make laws in the country, which the king alone
126
There is also a formula of the oath for the king’s election in Jónsbók, with almost same
wording as Járnsíða (Jónsbók 1904, pp.29-30.) But since Jónsbók was not accepted at the time
of this oath to King Eiríkr, I believe that the formula in Járnsíða was more likely to have been
used here.
127
Ár.62:86: “Á þessu hausti ok um vetrinn höfðu menn séna bók þá er herra Jón með. Fannz
menn svá sem margir hlutir væri í henni mjök frekir um óbótamál ok aðra hluti þá sem óhentir
vóru landsbúinu. Byskupi þótti ok margir hlutir í henni móti Guðs lögum.” (“In the autumn and
winter, people have seen the book that herra Jón had come with. People found that many parts in
the book were very strict about óbótamál [or úbótamál – cases which cannot be atoned for with
fines] and other parts were unsuitable for the people in the country. The bishop thought that
many parts in it were against God’s law.”)
48
ought to enact [i.e., which was a prerogative of the king]. Then he demanded that the
public accept the entire book unconditionally. Everyone answered that they would not
surrender the country’s freedom [frelsi – probably meaning ‘rights’] in that
way. Loðinn responded that they should first accept the book and later ask the king
and his councillors for mercy on the parts that they felt needed some reconsideration.
Afterwards he had a king’s letter read out, in which he was ordered to have the law
book accepted, and he declared that [the king’s] wrath would wait for those who
behaved otherwise.
(Ár.63:93-94)
Bishop Árni spoke against Loðinn, insisting upon the priority of God’s law over the
land’s law (i.e., secular law.) The bishop’s speech concluded as follows:
“Svá viljum vér ok með engu móti þola at heilög kirkja tapi því frelsi, at þar á greinir
Guðs lög ok landslög ráði jafnan Guðs lög eptir því sem löngu var lögtekit hér í
lögréttu yfir allt várt land með góðu samþykki allra landsmanna.” Ok er hann hafði
þat talat rómaði múgrinn stórum vel þat er hann vildi at kirkjan eðr alþýðan týndi eigi
sínu frelsi.
(“So we will by no means endure [the possibility] that the holy Church would lose its
freedom; indeed God’s law shall always have priority wherever God’s law and the
land’s law are in discord, as it has been in accordance with the acceptance long ago
by the Law Court to encompass all our land, with the good consent of all the
inhabitants.” And when he had spoken this, the crowd praised it greatly and consented
to his will in this that the Church or the people would not lose their own freedom.)
(Ár.63:95)
49
The discussion continued, but Loðinn leppr did not give way at all, saying, “I have never
come, neither on land nor on the sea, to anywhere a king’s right was trampled as it is
here, and especially by bishops” (Ár.63:96.)128
In spite of this great disagreement, the participants in the assembly ultimately
accepted the whole of Jónsbók, except for the chapters that the king’s retainers wanted to
let remain in the hands of the king and the archbishop. Everyone signalled their
agreement with a show of hands, “except nine men, who followed the bishop and did not
go into [the king’s] hands when the common people [almúginn]129 gave in to the power
of the king’s men” (Ár.63:96-97.) Among these nine laymen was Loptr Helgason.
Loðinn called all of them landráðamenn (‘traitors’)130 and mentioned Loptr as the worst,
because he had sworn two false oaths (tvá eiða ósæra.)131 His words indicate that Loptr
should not have been allowed to do this, and the former allegations in 1277-78 were still
taken seriously. Loðinn did not allow Loptr to leave the assembly, but when the bishop
knew of this, he asked Loptr to come with him, and he did so.132
After the assembly, the discord between Loðinn and the bishop continued. Loðinn
summoned all the nine men who did not agree with Jónsbók to Norway, and insisted that
128
“hvergi kom ek þar til lands né lagar at svá sé nokkors konungs réttindi undir fótum troðin
sem hér, ok þó mest af byskupum.”
129
Actually, the participants in the assembly were by no means ‘common people.’ They were
select members of the upper class of householders from each district all over Iceland. About the
selection of the assembly participants (nefndarmenn), see Björn Þorsteinsson & Sigurdur Líndal.
1978, pp.60-64; Járnsíða stipulates that 140 men were employed for this work, while Jónsbók
states that 84 men were involved.
130
The concept of landráð is detailed in Orning, Unpredictability, 2008, p.120: “Landráða can
mean both ‘government of the land’ and ‘high treason.’ The reason for this ambiguity can be
found in the verb ráða, which in addition to the common meaning ‘to advise, decide, govern’
can mean ‘betray’.” In footnote 26 on the same page he asserts that, “The same ambiguity
applies to the term landráðamaðr, which can mean both ‘ruler of a land’ and ‘traitor’. The term
landráðasök, however, has only the latter meaning.”
131
Footnote 3, on Ár., p.97: Ósær eiðr is an oath that shall not be sworn; an oath that would be
perjury [false oath] if it were sworn.
132
Loptr and Bishop Árni disputed with Ásgrímr sýslumaðr before this assembly, over the
Church property at Skálaholt (Ár.64:98.) Consequently Ásgrímr was harsh with them in this
case.
50
Loptr in particular should be arrested and put on board a ship. But some Icelandic king’s
men, led by Hrafn Oddsson and Jón lögmaðr, mediated between both sides, and managed
to have Loðinn invite the bishop to a feast to make settlement. The nine summoned men
were also called to the feast, and it turned out that only four of them pledged to go
abroad; the other five were freed from the summons by swearing “an oath to give the
king absolute loyalty thereafter, according to their righteous obligation” (“eiða at veita
konunginum fullkomliga hlýðni þaðan frá eptir réttri skyldu” Ár.65:98-99.) Then Loðinn
and the bishop again discussed the unacceptable points of Jónsbók. In the end, they both
reached agreement and parted with a proper gift and apparent kindness (“skilðuz þá
líkliga með yfirbragði” Ár.65:100.)
Discrepancy over legislation
Loðinn leppr’s furious words made clear what it is that the king did demand from the
Icelandic subjects: that they should accept the king’s law without any condition. This
attitude was based on the rex iustus ideology, in which the king is God’s representative
on earth with the authority to monopolise law and justice, as was seen above in 2.2.
However, the Icelanders answered that they would not lose their freedom (frelsi
landsins), and that they wanted to consult with the king before accepting the law. Frelsi
landsins here seems to mean the right to participate in deciding what the law should be.
Traditionally, the law in Iceland was based on consensus among the people (or, more
precisely, among assembly participants) from the outset. The idea that the king alone
should implement the law was totally new in Iceland in 1281. Even nearly twenty years
after they came under the rule of a king, Icelanders still believed that they had the right
to participate in political decisions alongside the ruler at assemblies, as was shown by the
resistance against Jónsbók at the General Assembly.
51
5.
Loptr’s journey and the strife in Norway
Loptr was one of the four men who pledged to go to Norway after the reconciliation with
Loðinn in 1281. He went to Norway in 1283 and had to stay there until 1287. What
prolonged his stay for four years? In this chapter, we will first look at the connection
between Loptr’s journey and the context of the great political strife in Norway at that
time, and then turn to what we can see from Loptr’s story about the political dynamics in
Iceland in this transitional period leading up to the king’s rule.
5.1
The strife in Norway (1280-90)
King Magnús lagabætir, a great legislator and a great friend of Bishop Árni, died on 9
May 1280. On 2 July his son and successor Eiríkr ascended the throne at the age of 12,
but his mother, Queen Ingibjörg and the barons133 took his regency and were de facto
rulers of the kingdom. The regency did not respect King Magnús’s concessions to the
Church, and this marked the onset of a great strife between the monarchy and the Church
in Norway. Soon after the enthronement of Eiríkr, the regency issued a general
ordinance (réttarbót – an amendment to the National Law), which contained some
paragraphs on ecclesiastical matters.134 Archbishop Jón rauði responded promptly with
a statute threatening all those who infringed upon the privileges of the Church with
excommunication. In the summer of 1281, the barons revoked some of the archbishop’s
privileges (privileges to which King Magnús had initially agreed), and then the
archbishop excommunicated some of the barons. The barons responded by outlawing the
archbishop and the clerics who supported him. The archbishop and two bishops left the
133
The title of ‘baron’ was given to former lendir menn (‘landed men’) in 1277 by King Magnús
lagabætir; barons were the highest-ranking nobles in the king’s retinue and formed the king’s
council.
134
I base my account of the process of the strife on Bagge, From Viking Stronghold, 2010,
pp.303-304.
52
country, and Archbishop Jón rauði died in exile in Skara in Sweden on 21 December
1282. After 1283, however, the situation was gradually normalised. The bishops started
to return, and a new archbishop, Jörundr, was elected in 1287 (consecrated on 10
October 1288.) Finally, in 1290, King Eiríkr himself issued a proclamation of peace.
5.2
Loptr’s journey to Norway and stay there (1283-87)
After the General Assembly of 1281, Loptr delayed his departure to Norway until 1283.
In the summer of 1282, two letters came from Norway commanding Loptr to make the
journey. Ásgrímr sýslumaðr was particularly eager to execute this order because of his
discord with Loptr and the bishop. Ásgrímr summoned an assembly and ordered Loptr to
come there, but Loptr still did not go, hiding himself in the church in Skálaholt
(Ár.70:104-105.)
That same summer (1282), Hrafn Oddsson went to Norway; Þorvarðr Þórarinsson,
who sailed out in 1281 with Loðinn leppr, was also staying in Norway in the winter of
1282-83. Because of the absence of these two most prominent king’s men, Ásgrímr was
bound to the king’s errand more strongly and gained more power in Iceland
(Ár.71:105.)135 Ásgrímr accused Loptr of the land selling of Hlíð,136 which Loptr sold
to Snorri Narfason in the winter of 1281-82 after he had been pronounced guilty by
Loðinn (Ár.69:103-104.) Ásgrímr said that what Loptr had sold was in essence the
king’s property, because all the property of traitors is forfeit to the king (Ár.72:105.)137
In the spring of 1283, Ásgrímr again summoned Loptr to the local assembly under his
135
Magnús Stefánsson, Frá goðakirkju til biskupskirkju, 1978, p.186.
Hlíð hin meiri, possibly Úthlíð, a farm in Biskupstungur, in Árnessýsla. Ár. Nafnskrá, p.477.
137
Footnote 1 on Ár., p.105: according to Jónsbók, the property of óbótamenn, those who
commit a crime which cannot be atoned for with fines, should be divided between his lawful heir
and the king, “except the case of high treason” (utan landráð ok drottinssvik við konung.)”
Jónsbók 1904, p.41; Jónsbók 2010, pp.40-43. Thus, in the case of a traitor, all of his property
should be handed to the king.
136
53
control, but Loptr still did not go. Then Ásgrímr attempted to surprise Loptr, who was
around a ship at that time, and he spoke to Loptr arrogantly, calling him a landráðamaðr
and a perjurer. Loptr responded that he had shown his full obligation as a subject to the
king, with witnesses from the neighbourhood in support of his case, and insisted that he
would transfer all this matter into the king’s hands if the king somehow found him guilty.
Taking that ship, Loptr finally sailed to Norway and arrived in Bergen that autumn
(1283.) But hardships awaited him in Norway. He was not allowed to meet the king and
was forced to stay in Norway for four years until 1287, suffering abuse directed at him
(Ár.72:107-108.)
According to Árna saga, in the summer of 1283 news of the strife between the
barons and the Church in Norway was reported in Iceland (Ár.73:109.) This situation in
Norway probably caused increasing pressure from the king’s side to impel Loptr to go to
Norway, and even Bishop Árni could not resist it – partly because his biggest patron,
Archbishop Jón, had already died in exile in Sweden. When Loptr arrived in Norway in
the autumn of 1283, King Eiríkr was 15 years old, but still did not hold real power. Loptr
thus had to reconcile with the barons, who strongly opposed the Church. Loptr’s
negotiations with the barons were obviously difficult, because Bishop Árni, who was
very close to Archbishop Jón, was regarded as an enemy to the kingship, as is shown in a
letter written by Loptr to Bishop Árni. In the letter, Loptr informed the bishop of the
seriousness of the discord between the barons and the Church in Norway, and of the fact
that the barons took it very badly that the bishop had stood against Loðinn at the General
Assembly in 1281. Loptr then asked the bishop to be reconciled with the Crown
(Ár.73:110-111.) After having read this letter, the bishop acted to save Loptr in Iceland;
he discussed the matter with the Icelandic king’s men at the General Assembly in 1284,
where the issues brought by the letter from King Eiríkr and his mother were also
54
discussed. Bishop Árni asked Hrafn Oddsson and the other king’s men for help to
arrange Loptr’s pardon and return (Ár.84:126.) They agreed and wrote about it in a letter
to the king (Ár.88:130.)
Ch.94 of Árna saga narrates Loptr’s pains to obtain the king’s pardon in Norway.
He finally received it in the summer of 1286, in Túnsberg, after the intercession of many
of the king’s men, both Icelandic and Norwegian, including Loðinn leppr himself.
It is unknown whether Loptr admitted his guilt in Norway, because the saga does
not tell us the discussions between Loptr and the king’s men. The saga just states that
King Eiríkr took Loptr in reconciliation (í sætt), at the request of some of the king’s men.
Loptr spent the winter of 1286 with King Eiríkr, who welcomed him and “made him his
eiðsvari” (“gerði konungrinn hann eiðsvara sinn.”) Then the king gave him permission
to go to Iceland the following summer (Ár.94:135-136.) Loptr came back to Iceland in
the summer of 1287 and was greatly welcomed by the bishop (Ár.122:171.)
The pardoning of Loptr in 1286 was a result of the normalisation of the situation in
Norway; in particular, in 1285-90 the barons and the Church headed towards an accord.
One factor of in this normalisation was the maturing of King Eiríkr. As Magnús
Stefánsson pointed out, the saga writer shows the increasing influence of King Eiríkr
himself in the governing of the kingdom; the pardoning of Loptr, after making him his
own follower (eiðsvari) in 1286, is one demonstration of that he came to power.138 King
Eiríkr, born in 1268, reached at the age of 18 years old in 1286; this age was enough to
start ruling the kingdom himself. Also, in 1287 his mother, Queen Ingibjörg, died, which
probably helped King Eiríkr’s attain more independence. As a result of this amelioration
of the tension from 1285 on, a concordat between the king and the new archbishop,
Jörundr, was made in 1290.
138
Magnús Stefánsson, Frá goðakirkju, 1978, p.212.
55
5.3
Political dynamics under kingship
Discrepancy over the subject’s obligations
From this case of Loptr, then, what kind of changes can we see concerning the kingship?
Firstly, I focus on the issue of þegnskylda – the subject’s obligations.
As we have seen above, in ch.4, Loptr swore the oath of fidelity to the kings in
Norway, first in 1277-78 (ch.60), and again in 1280-81 (ch.61.) Nevertheless, he did not
accept the king’s new law, and Loðinn leppr regarded that as high treason. This indicates
that the king’s representatives from Norway took the oath of fidelity seriously, as the
confirmation of absolute obedience to the king; in their view, one who swore the oath of
fidelity should obey the king on every occasion. Yet Loptr’s behaviour was not in
accordance with this view; he may have understood his first oath of fidelity in 1277-78
simply as something akin to the sign of peacemaking that had been performed in Iceland
since the Sturlung Era.
Here I base my discussion on Hans Jacob Orning about the dichotomy between
absolute and contextual loyalty.139 Contextual loyalty is situational, “not something that
exists as a constant norm, but is a property that must be actively invoked by whoever
desires or demands it from another person.”140 Absolute loyalty is, in contrast, a clearly
defined norm which does not vary in different situations: “In its ideal type, loyalty to the
ruler will be constant in time and place in that his presence is generalized and
internalized to the extent that his physical presence or use of coercion is not necessary
for achieving obedience.”141
Orning also points out that writing makes this decontextualisation possible, and
absolute loyalty is characteristic of a ‘state’ society, where direct encounters between the
139
140
141
Orning, Unpredictability, 2008, pp.5-10.
Ibid., p.6.
Ibid., pp.8-9.
56
king and his subjects are no longer crucial. If we focus on the case of political
communication, the 16 volumes of Diplomatarium Islandicum, which include all
well-known Icelandic medieval documents, clearly attest to the increase in political
writing: documents from the earliest times until 1264 form around 6% of the whole
collection, 15% are from the Norwegian Era (1265-1400), 24% from the 15th century and
55% from the 16th century.142 Since many documents must have been lost, this
proportion does not show the actual situation of documentation. There is, however, a
good possibility that the increase in political writing, which progressed from the late
13th-century,143 would have made the decontextualisation of loyalty also possible in
Iceland.
All Icelanderes swore their loyalty to the king in Norway in 1262-64, but at that
time trúnaðareiðr (‘the oath of fidelity’) was not fully established as a legal institution,
as we have seen in section 4.1; it could mean different acts – the confirmation of
personal ties or the collective oath of allegiance to the lord – and the meaning could
change according to the context. Thus, presumably most Icelanders did not expect that
the oath of fidelity at konungstekja confirmed absolute obedience to the king, which
would allow the king to decide the law of Iceland for himself; that is why they strongly
defied Loðinn leppr’s order to accept the king’s law without condition in 1281. However,
when the five of the nine landráðamenn freed themselves from the summons after the
assembly of 1281, the saga clearly remarks that they were asked to swear ‘absolute
loyalty’ (fullkomlig hlýðni) to the king (Ár.65:98-99.) Thus, Loðinn leppr at least was
well aware of the new form of loyalty.
142
Gunnar Karlsson, Iceland’s 1100 years, 2007, p.258.
Björn Þorsteinsson & Sigurður Líndal, Lögfesting konungsvalds, 1978, pp.28-33, especially
p.29: after Gamli sáttmáli in 1262-64, the number of documents relating to Icelandic matters
increased.
143
57
But, what about Loptr and others? In the first case, of 1277-78, it is unclear why
Loptr (and Björn) were accused by the king’s representative. All we know is that they
were suspected of having spoken disrespectfully about the kingship, a matter which
seemed quite serious from the viewpoint of the king’s representative. On the other hand,
in the second case Loptr’s double oaths of fidelity were strongly criticised by Loðinn
leppr. Also, just before Loptr’s departure to Norway, Ásgrímr sýslumaðr accused him of
landráð and perjury. Loðinn leppr and Ásgrímr thus had the same idea about the
subject’s obligation and the breach of this responsibility, but Loptr himself definitely did
not think of himself as guilty, as he refuted Ásgrímr’s accusation and argued that, “he,
according to proper witnesses from the neighbourhood, was fulfilling his obligation to
the king” (“hann hefði at allra byggðarmanna vitni alla lýðskyldu konungi goldit ok
hvergi óframar” Ár.72:108.) On arriving at the Norwegian court, however, his view was
clearly unacceptable to the king and the barons, who simply hurled abuse at him. This
episode sheds light on a discrepancy concerning the subject’s obligations between the
king’s circle and the subjects in Iceland.
And there was also a discrepancy displayed in the ideas shared among Icelanders.
Obviously, most farmers in Iceland did not have the chance to meet the king directly.
Within Iceland, they probably behaved in the same way to the king’s representatives as
before the submission in 1262-64, as Loptr did. But the Norwegian kings in the mid 13th
century were on the path of ideological transformation. They intended to assert
themselves as the only divinely chosen rulers over the whole kingdom, rulers who were
granted the authority to demand absolute obedience from their subjects and who were no
longer dependent on direct negotiation with their followers in the assemblies.
Icelandic king’s men and the bishops, who had more chance to travel to Norway
and to socialise within the king’s circle, were presumably more familiar with the rex
58
iustus ideology and the idea of þegnskylda than others in Iceland. For example, in the
conflict of 1277-78 (see above, 4.1), Ásgrímr sýslumaðr knew of the notion of
þegnskylda, and used the breaching of it – in this case, the act of speaking treacherously
about the king – to accuse his enemies, Loptr and Björn.
Nevertheless, it seems that even the king’s men and the bishops tended to decide
their behaviour according to their own interests in Iceland. Ásgrímr always acted in
accordance with the Norwegian king’s men, but when a severe discord occurred in the
General Assembly of 1281 between the bishop and Loðinn leppr, Hrafn Oddsson and Jón
lögmaðr Einarson managed to mediate between them. As for Hrafn Oddsson, on one
occasion he expressed his agreement to the king’s prerogative to reign over the law, as
follows: “we know that no one in our land is to reign over the law except the king” (“Svá
vitum vér ok at engi á váru landi á lögum at ráða útan konungr,” Ár.85:127.) ‘At ráða á
lögum’ can mean ‘have the right of legislation,’ but the meaning is ambiguous here.
However, these words appear in the argument at the General Assembly of 1284 against
Bishop Árni’s insistence on Church rights. Hrafn tried to refute the bishop, arguing that
it was not the bishop, but the king, who was to decide which right should belong to the
Church. Furthermore, Hrafn’s words are similar to Loðinn leppr’s in 1281: “búkarlar
gerðu sik svá digra at þeir hugðu at skipa lögum í landi, þeim sem konungr einn saman
átti at ráða” (Ár.63:93; see above, 4.2.) At least we can assume that the saga writer here
presented Hrafn as the supporter of the king’s right. But later, in 1286, when King Eiríkr
demanded levies (leiðangr)144 from Iceland for the war against Sweden, the same Hrafn
was reluctant to support the king, whereas in contrast Bishop Árni did support the king,
mentioning the king’s right to rule his subjects (Ár.110:157-8.) Thus, although the
144
There is the stipulation about leiðangr in the Defence Section (Landvarnarbálkr) in the
National Law in Norway, but in the Icelandic version, Jónsbók, the Defence Section was
replaced by the section on royal taxation, and there is no stipulation concerning leiðangr.
Gudmund Sandvik & Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Laws, in McTurk ed., A Companion, 2005, p.228.
59
Icelandic king’s men and bishops shared the new royal ideology, whether they supported
it or not depended upon the occasion.
Delegation of the king’s power
The attitude of the king’s men such as Eindriði böggull, Loðinn leppr or Ásgrímr, shows
that they tried to realise the new royal ideology in Iceland, mainly through demanding
the oath of fidelity and by imposing summons to the king. But how far was this
realisation achieved?
Since the king himself never came to Iceland, it was the king’s representatives who
executed the king’s policy. But the intervention of representatives from Norway was
restricted by their reach, and the number of Norwegian royal representatives in Iceland
was certainly not large. For example, Árna saga, which covers the period ca1260-90,
mentions only three Norwegian king’s representatives who came to Iceland.145
And the Icelandic king’s men did not work in the same way as their Norwegian
counterparts. For instance, none of the Icelandic king’s men received the oath of
allegiance to kings: when Icelanders accepted Gamli sáttmáli, they swore the oath to the
Norwegian king’s representatives, such as Ívarr Englason in 1256 (HkS, ch.283, p.280)
and Hallvarðr gullskór (and the bishop Sigvarðr) in 1261-2 (HkS, ch.311, pp.322-3.) At
the konungstekja of King Eiríkr and Duke Hákon in 1280, they submitted to Loðinn
leppr (Ár. 61:85-6.) The Icelandic king’s men often accompanied the Norwegian
representatives at konungstekja, but they did not appear as the oath’s receiver by
themselves. Jón Viðar Sigurðsson,146 Randi Wærdahl147 and Sigríður Beck148 have
145
Eindriði böggull (1271-72: chs.18, 20; 1277-78: chs.44, 49, 60), Loðinn leppr (1280-81:
chs.57, 61-63, 65), and Óláfr Ragnríðarson (1288: chs.126-128, 132-136.)
146
Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, The Icelandic aristocracy, 1995, p.158, footnote 18: from Einar
Laxness, Íslendssaga A-K (Reykjavík,1974), p.7.
60
listed the names of the Icelandic king’s men and officials. Among them, Hrafn Oddsson
and Þorvarðr Þórarinsson were appointed by King Magnús in 1273 to collaborate in
governing Iceland,149 and they appeared as the leaders of Icelanders thereafter, but even
they did not become receivers of the oath of fidelity at konungstekja. This fact indicates
that the king did not delegate his authority to the Icelandic king’s men as much as he did
to the Norwegians.
Social stratification
The scene of the assembly of 1281 was also remarkable by the clear distinction it made
between the three social groups in Iceland: the king’s men (handgengnir menn, herrar),
the clergy and the common people (bændr, almúgi, múgi, alþýða – actually this group
consisted of the élite of farmers.)150 Throughout the entire Árna saga there is an
intention to make a explicit distinction between these three groups. However, Loptr’s
case can be seen as ambiguous, because Loptr, the bishop’s man, happened to go to
Norway and had a chance to socialise with the king’s men; did he achieve social
promotion in Iceland, as a result?
147
Randi Wærdahl, Norges konges rike, 2006, pp.261-265: Appendiks: Kongens embetsmenn
på Island 1273-1397 and footnote 904; she takes the information about officials and officials’
periods from Islandske Annaler indtil 1578, Árna saga biskupa, Lárentíus saga biskups, DI,
Íslenzkar ártíðaskrár.
148
Sigríður Beck, I kungens frånvaro, 2011, pp.255-257: Bilaga: kungens män på island
1271-1387.
149
“Þa lét Magnús konungr Þorvarð ok Hrafn sverja hvárn öðrum trúnaðareiða ok félagsskap í
Björgyn at hjáveranda Jóni erkibiskupi ok mörgum öðrum mætum mönnum; ok fékk þeim allt
Ísland til stjórnar undir hans valdi.” (“Then King Magnús made Þorvarðr and Hrafn swear to
each other the oath of fidelity and fellowship at Bergen in the presence of Archbishop Jón and
many other worthy men; and gave them all Iceland to rule under his authority.”) Magnúss saga
lagabætis, p.373 (the English translation is mine.) This is an entry from Gottskálks annáll, which
is extant in the manuscript Holm perg 5 8vo, dated to c.1550-60 (Isl.Ann., pp.331-2), and
believed to have been taken from the lost Magnúss saga lagabætis. This information about the
oath between Hrafn and Þorvarðr is not found in the other annals, but Árna saga also says that
King Magnús appointed Hrafn to the rule of half of Iceland (Ár.19:28.)
150
For instance, the division between the three social groups is mentioned in Björn Þorsteinsson
& Sigurður Líndal, Lögfesting konungsvalds, 1978, pp.44-45 and p.76.
61
Before the journey to Norway, Loptr was counted among the farmers (bændr,
Ár.61:86), but he was not a poor man. He was the steward of Skálaholt, and obviously
well supported by Bishop Árni. He could afford his voyage and stay in Norway, and he
also spent quite a lot of money to get support for the the king’s pardon.151
In Norway, Loptr was initially banned from the king’s court (konungsgarðrinn),
and suffered abuse, but at last he was welcomed to the court, and “the king made him his
eiðsvari” (“gerði konungrinn hann eiðsvara sinn” Ár.94:136.) Although Magnús
Stefánsson interpreted this to mean that Loptr became a retainer (handgenginn maður) of
King Eiríkr,152 since eiðsvari means ‘one who is bound by oath,’ the sentence can imply
that ‘the king made him swear the oath of fidelity,’ and so it did not necessarily mean
that Loptr became a king’s retainer. But because the saga repeats the episode again when
it mentions his return to Iceland (Ár.122:171), becoming the king’s eiðsvari was at least
thought to be honourable.
Unfortunately, we do not know if Loptr changed his idea about kingship after his
four years’ stay in Norway, nor if his social status in Iceland changed. Árna saga
mentions Loptr only once after his return: in 1288, when Bishop Árni went to the
General Assembly, Loptr was sent to Austfirðir (Ár.127:178.)153 This short comment
merely suggests that Loptr was working for Bishop Árni, just as he was before he went
to Norway. Thus, most probably, his position in Iceland did not change, although his
experience at the Norwegian court would have been thought honourable among the
151
For instance, Loptr paid Hallkell Ögmundarson (a vassal of King Magnús lagabætir) five
hundreds of vaðmál (homespun wool, the main currency goods exported from Iceland),
Ár.94:136.
152
Magnús Stefánsson, Frá goðakirkju, 1978, p.212.
153
Guðrún Ása Grímsdóttir considers ‘herra Loptr,’ mentioned in the description of 1289, to be
Loptr Helgason (Ár.143:201 and the index on p.483), but this Loptr is more likely to be Loptr
Hálfdanarson in Oddi as Gunhild & Magnús Stefánsson noted in the Norwegian translation
(p.177, footnote 350.) Loptr Hálfdanarson is counted as riddari in Beck, I kungens frånvaro,
2011, p.256.
62
bishop’s circle. Thus, Loptr’s case cannot be counted as a case of the social promotion of
a ‘new man.’
Another issue is the relationship between the three social groups. Jón Viðar
Sigurðsson maintains that the close relationship between farmers and chieftains was cut
off after the chieftains became the king’s men, mainly because they came to establish
their authority from the king, and did not need the farmers’ support any longer.154 It is
true that entering the king’s service became a new source of authority, and the former
chieftains gradually grew in status like the so-called ‘service aristocracy,’ but on the
other hand it appears that the Icelandic king’s men and the bishops occupied a similar
position between the king in Norway and the farmers in their home country; in Iceland,
they mediated between the farmers and the king’s representatives from Norway,
although each king’s man and bishop had quite different interests. The relationship
between the farmers and the king’s men – i.e., the former chieftains – seems to have not
been totally cut off, at least in the period of the 1270-80s.
Furthermore, in the 14th century, when many difficulties confronted the Norwegian
kingship, its relationship with Icelanders was forced to change. When King Hákon
háleggr died in Tønsberg in 1319, Magnús Eiríksson, the king of Sweden at that time,
took over the crown of Norway – that marked the onset of a joint monarchy with
Sweden and later with Denmark, which continued on until 1814. This danger to the
Norwegian crown would have loosened the control of royal officials in Iceland, which
may have allowed the traditional ways of the island to return in force; unfortunately,
further investigation of this matter is necessarily beyond the scope of this paper.
154
Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, The Icelandic aristocracy, 1995; Id., Changing layers, 2007.
63
The rhetorical intention
As the final remark, I would like to mention the rhetorical intention of Árna saga. The
saga is often attributed to Árni Helgason, a nephew of Árni Þorláksson, and his successor
to the bishopric of Skálaholt (1304-20), but this is not necessarily true, as Gunhild and
Magnús Stefánsson have pointed out in their recent Norwegian translation; even still,
they agree that the saga was written in the Skálaholt milieu around 1300, and that there
Árni Helgason was a main source of information.155 Árni Helgason was a brother of
Loptr Helgason. If he had a strong influence on the contents of Árna saga, why did he
include the story of his brother’s hardships?
In Árna saga, the episode of Loptr’s conflict in 1277-78 (ch.60) was inserted
between Loðinn leppr’s arrival to Iceland in 1280 (ch.57) and the events of the General
Assembly in 1281 (ch.61-65.) There was thus a clear rhetorical intention to contextualise
Loptr’s discord with the king’s men; Loptr’s oath “never to be against a king’s
representative when he spoke on law and rights” in 1277-78 (Ár.60:85) obviously
anticipated what happened between Loptr and Loðinn leppr later, in 1281.
The episode of Loptr was important for the saga-writers, most notably because it
influenced the then bishop’s struggle for the freedom of the Church against the secular
king’s men. Probably Loptr was chosen as a scapegoat by the king’s men – specifically
by Loðinn leppr – to damage the bishop’s reputation (only Loptr was forced to go to
Norway of the nine men who were originally called landráðamenn at the General
Assembly of 1281.) The bishop could not prevent this summons, and after he received
the letter from Loptr in Norway, the bishop had to concede to the king’s men and so
gave up some of what he thought to be the Church’ rights in the assembly of 1284
(Ár.84-88:122-131.)
155
Biskop Arnes saga, pp.11-12.
64
On the other hand the saga never presents Loptr as actually guilty of high treason.
The saga instead carefully shows how he performed the oath of fidelity to the king, but
nevertheless Loptr had to go to Norway and beg the king’s pardon. This suggests that the
saga-writers realised that the Icelanders’ relationship to the king had changed, and the
traditional way to show loyalty to the ruler (as they did to chieftains in the Sturlung Era)
was no longer enough; another kind of loyalty – we might call it absolute obedience –
was demanded. And thus the saga-writers would have tried to show how Icelanders –
especially farmers – should behave as subjects to the king and his representatives.
Summary
From the case of Loptr Helgason we can first conclude that there was a discrepancy over
the subject’s obligations between the king’s circle and the farmers in Iceland. Following
the submission in 1262-64, every Icelander became a king’s subject and had obligations
to the king. The Norwegian king and his representatives came to demand absolute
obedience from their Icelandic subjects, but in Iceland, most farmers did not really know
how to behave as subjects and persisted in their ways of negotiating with the ruler.
There was also a gap between the farmers and those who were in the court milieu,
such as bishops or king’s men in Iceland. It was the bishop and the Icelandic king’s men
who could bridge that gap, and their intercession allowed farmers to deal with the king’s
demands and participate in political decision-making.
Another point is that in the transition period of the 1270-1280s the system of royal
officials was unstable, and the Norwegian royal representatives had substantial influence
on the execution of the king’s power.156 The Icelandic king’s men also worked for the
king, but the king did not delegate the same authority and power to Icelandic retainers as
156
This supports Sigríður Beck’s view that, “The royal emissaries were a part of Icelandic
administration at least until 1319” (I kungens frånvaro, 2011, p.247 in the English summary.)
65
to their Norwegian counterparts. And, at least within Iceland, they could act very much
in their own interests rather than caring about the king’s ideology.
6.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we should now be able to find an answer for the first question – was
Iceland still a feuding society even after the submission to the king, or did it evolve into
a state?
Although the information in the extant contemporary narratives is limited, it does
indicate that people kept on feuding long after submitting to the king. At least, people
did not stop claiming their rights by direct violence. In most matters Icelanders would
have preferred to resolve their problems according to traditional methods: revenge,
mediation and compromise.
In contrast, the case of Loptr Helgason’s conflict set out in ch.4 and ch.5 shows
some aspects of change under the king’s rule. The king could have intervened in
conflicts in Iceland through his representatives; in particular, when the issue under
dispute was concerned with kingship – i.e., high treason – it was difficult to avoid the
king’s intervention. The institutionalised summons of subjects to the king was active in
Iceland, just as it affected Loptr, for example. This situation implies that Iceland was no
longer a purely feuding society, in which the peacemaking system through feuds
fundamentally functioned to make up the absence of any central authority; the
formalisation of feud by the lord progressed in Iceland as it did in other parts of Europe
in the 13th century.
It should be noted, however, that the king’s power did not readily become central in
Icelandic society. The king’s representatives executed his policy through the new legal
institutions, such as summons to Norway or the oath of fidelity, but the kings in the late
66
13th century did not delegate their power to the Icelandic retainers as much as to the
Norwegian representatives, whose intervention was surely restricted in Iceland.
Also, there was discrepancy between how the subjects should behave and how they
did behave. The king started to demand absolute obedience from his subjects, but
Icelanders were not always aware of this requirement: the farmers merely offered the
king contextual loyalty, which allowed them to negotiate with the king; the Icelandic
king’s men and bishops shared the new royal ideology and, as Ásgrímr sýslumaðr did to
Loptr, often made use of the king’s policy. However, whether they supported the king or
not depended on the occasion. This difference in the implementation of the subject’s
obligation shows that Icelanders, who confronted the new ideology and policy of the
king in the 1270-80s, tended to keep their way in many matters.
We can therefore conclude that the centralisation of legislative and judicial power
to the king – or state formation – on the one hand actually progressed in Iceland during
the period of the 1270-80s, but on the other Icelanders could retain their old ways. What,
then, was their way – or, the uniqueness of the state-less society? We can at least say that
they kept on feuding and continued negotiating with the ruler at assemblies, for long
after their submission to the crown, as is for instance shown by Skálaholtssamþykkt in
1375, through which they demanded their right to participate in the election of
lawmen.157 In fact, feud in some form was also continued in Norway,158 and it is
necessary to explore more deeply into the continuing history of feuds and feuding
culture, an investigation that this paper has merely begun.
157
158
Beck, I kungens frånvaro, 2011, p.69.
Helgi Þorláksson, Konungsvald og hefnd, 1997, pp.253-4; Erik Opsahl ed. Feider og fred i
nordisk middelalder, 2007.
67
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